ABSTRACT
The current debate about the part played by Switzerland in the Second World War focuses on two problem areas: the 'vanished dormant accounts' that had been brought to Switzerland by victims of the National Socialist policy of extermination, and Switzerland's economic cooperation with the Axis powers. At an early stage, however, the controversy also extended to include refugee policy. Why was this? There are two points of contactbetween the subjects mentioned initially and this additional one. The first is whether the compensation payments should also include the repayment of sums contributed by the Swiss and international Jewish communities to support Jewish refugees in Switzerland during the war. The second is the extent to which Switzerland, on the borders of the dominion of the criminal regime, unilaterally decided its own fate, as it were, to become a welcoming refuge for money and gold but not for human beings. The first part of this chapter will show that the basic facts of Swiss refugee policy in those years have been known to some extent for 30 or 40 years now and can be found in the freely accessible publications. That, however, is not to say that the present controversy is unnecessary, or that all the questions involved have long since been answered, or even known.
