I have no objection to trying to see the whole
picture. Turn on the spotlights, and the
I/R sensors and any other signal
amplifiers we can deploy! (Yesterday I read
how pleased Winston Churchill was with the
sinking of the Lusitania, as a motivator
of the British people.)
You make a point that I have also heard, and
that reflects badly not on Switzerland but
on the Zionists, wherever they were: That
the Zionists tried to prevent countries from
taking in jewish refugees in the hope of
"channelling" them to Palestine. It seems the
Zionists believed the equivalent of the
Cold War American saying "better dead than
red": Better in a concentration camp than
dispersed and potentially assimilated. The
individual does not matter except insofar as he
or she can be consumed as a resource to further the
group's agenda -- which, of course, is
why fascist countries award medals to
women who product lots of future soldiers
and the mothers of future soldiers (a form
of "chain reaction" more powerful than
what happens in an atomic pile).
No, I did not mean to imply that Switzerland was
uniquely bad, only that it does not seem to
have been uniquely good.
The past is a bucket of ashes, and one of the
few ideas I find constructive from Christianity
[after taking account of epidemiological
factors, of course!!] is to leave the dead to
bury the dead -- "Hey, there, Antigone! Did you
hear that?"
Best wishes!
\brad mccormick
THere surely is enough blame to go
around on all sides.
Christoph Reuss wrote:
>
> Oh well, more clichés from a NYT reader...
>
> Brad McCormick wrote:
> > I seem to have read that Switzerland did indeed preserve
> > its @#$%neutrality*&^%$ by saying Yes to all, including
> > sheltering Nazi gold and stolen art. This is not exactly
> > "neutrality", but rather middle-man opportunism.
>
> Mistakes of individuals happened under the immense pressure
> of food and coal scarcity, stuck between the two Axis powers.
> (Also note the difference between private banks and a gov't.)
> But compare this to the actions of other neutral countries
> like Sweden (not between the two Axis powers) who supplied
> the _steel_ of which Nazi Germany built its tanks, warplanes,
> submarines, gunships etc., and violated international law
> by allowing Nazi _armed_forces_ to transit their "neutral"
> country (to occupy Norway). Everything is relative!
> How many people were killed by the armaments from Swedish
> steel, and how many people were killed by the stolen art?
>
> > I also seem to have heard that Switzerland's
> > border was not as "porous" for jews wishing to flee
> > THe Reich as the jews had hoped for.
>
> Oh really? In fact, the Jewish community in Zurich asked
> the Swiss authorities to take up _less_ Jewish refugees.
> (They preferred that they go directly to Palestine --
> Zionism and all that, you know.) Anyway, Switzerland
> took up tens of thousands of them (with an own population
> of 4 million), despite extreme scarcity of food and other
> basic necessities, not to mention that this really
> pissed off Berlin, increasing the likelihood of
> German incursions into the flat areas of Switzerland.
>
> Compare that to the rest of Europe where the persecution
> and deportation of local Jews was either tolerated or
> actively participated in by the local population.
> Or compare it to America which rejected Jewish refugees
> by the shipload, despite having lots of resources and space
> and no imminent danger at all.
>
> I know it's really easy to pass judgement on the 1940s'
> Switzerland from your NY armchair in 2002, but please
> at least try to see the whole picture...
>
> Chris
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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