«Refugees were forced to do hard, physical labour»

Among the objects in the Jewish Museum’s coll­ec­tion is a pho­to album from war­ti­me Switz­er­land (JMS 930). Bar­ba­ra Häne, a Swiss his­to­ri­an spe­cia­li­zing in refu­gees of World War II, rese­ar­ched the pho­tos as part of the pro­ject «JMS goes digi­tal» (2022). The muse­um direc­tor, Nao­mi Lubrich, asked her what she learned.

Nao­mi Lubrich: Bar­ba­ra, tell us about the pho­to album JMS 930. Whom did it belong to?

Bar­ba­ra Häne: The album belon­ged to Leo Stern­bach, a refu­gee who had fled Vien­na in Novem­ber 1938 to Die­pold­sau in St.Gallen, and was sub­se­quent­ly inter­ned in num­e­rous labor camps across Switz­er­land. The pho­tos show the ever­y­day life of the refu­gees in the camps. They show them buil­ding roads and toi­ling in the kit­chen, but we also see how they spent their free time, even play­ing soc­cer (UK: foot­ball). This pho­to album is an important tes­tim­o­ny to the lives of Jewish refugees.

NL: You use the word «refu­gees» (Ger­man: Flücht­lin­ge), not «emi­grants» (Ger­man: Emi­gran­ten). What’s the difference?

BH: Until the 1940s, Jewish refu­gees in Switz­er­land were refer­red to as «emi­grants.» The term impli­ed that they were unde­si­ra­ble for­eig­ners, as oppo­sed to peo­p­le per­se­cu­ted for poli­ti­cal reasons. As «emi­grants,» they were given only a short-term resi­dence per­mit, and the con­di­ti­on was that they con­ti­nue their jour­ney abroad as soon as pos­si­ble. The requi­re­ments were seve­re: The refu­gees had to pay a depo­sit or pro­vi­de some other gua­ran­tee that they had inde­pen­dent means. And they had to show evi­dence that they had con­cre­te plans con­ti­nue their jour­ney to a third coun­try. As «emi­grants» their resi­dence per­mit was only tem­po­ra­ry. But in rea­li­ty, most of the refu­gees had had to flee hasti­ly from Nazi per­se­cu­ti­on and wit­hout con­cre­te plans of tra­vel­ling on. I the­r­e­fo­re pre­fer the term «refu­gee.»

NL: Leo Stern­bach was inter­ned in various labour camps in Switz­er­land. Why?

BH: Refu­gees were rare­ly gran­ted work per­mits in Switz­er­land, so most could not find employ­ment. Ins­tead, they were inter­ned in camps and forced to work on govern­ment infra­struc­tu­re pro­jects, pri­ma­ri­ly road con­s­truc­tion. Switz­er­land depen­ded on refu­gees for cheap and hard labour, becau­se at the time, the young Swiss men were doing mili­ta­ry ser­vice. This was the time of the so-cal­led «gene­ral mobi­liza­ti­on.» The work was phy­si­cal­ly taxing, and the accom­mo­da­ti­ons were extre­me­ly mode­st, as you can see in the pho­tos, whe­ther in the camp in Die­pold­sau, St.Gallen, Bad Schau­en­burg, Basel­land or in the labor camp Zweid­len-Weiach near Zurich. Leo Stern­bach was inter­ned in each one. He was lucky: He had been assi­gned to work with the kit­chen crew, which was less stre­nuous than many of the other tasks. Refu­gees recei­ved a com­pen­sa­ti­on, but it was meager. And they were not allo­wed to use it as they wis­hed. It was depo­si­ted in a blo­cked account and was only allo­wed to be used to emi­gra­te to a new country.

NL: Do you know any­thing about Leo Sternbach’s life after he left the labour camps?

BH: Yes, the album con­ti­nues after the war ended. We see that Leo Stern­bach kept in touch with his fel­low inma­tes from the labour camps. They beca­me fri­ends. The pho­tos also show that many Jewish refu­gees had to lea­ve Switz­er­land after the war and find a new coun­try to live in. What sur­pri­sed me, is that many pho­tos from the labour camps are cheerful. Bes­i­des the hard work, they show hap­py times, fri­ends at the swim­ming pool. I per­so­nal­ly was inte­res­ted in the pho­tos show­ing the refu­gees cele­bra­ting Jewish holi­days in the labour camps, for exam­p­le Rosh ha-Shanah in Die­pold­sau or Suk­kot and Cha­nuk­kah in Bad Schauenburg.

NL: Very inte­res­t­ing! Bar­ba­ra, thank you very much for tel­ling us about this chap­ter of Swiss history.