Meeting with Holocaust survivors

Ahead of the International Day on 27 January, Alain Berset receives Holocaust survivors living in Switzerland in Berne. The meeting is organised with the Gamaraal Foundation and the Swiss Association of Jewish Welfare Committees (VSJF). He thus continues a tradition set by his predecessors.

In his welcome address, he names the dangers that threaten memory: forgetting, distortion, minimisation. He cites Russian propaganda about a supposedly Nazi Ukraine, whose president “is Jewish”. Almost 80 years after the war, the witnesses are ever fewer; the greatest danger, he says, is indifference. “That is why I am here with you today. To listen to you.” Several participants had brought a document attesting to their link with Switzerland.

Speeches on this site

• Rencontre avec des survivantes et survivants de l’Holocauste (in French, French-language page)