Verhaal

Victims of Swiss policies

Eliazar van Embden and his wife Sara van Embden-Slier crossed the border to Switzerland on August 18, 1942. The Swiss border had been strictly closed by a government decree on August 4, implemented by a circular on August 13. The van Embdens were put into jail in Porrentruy. On the day after, Swiss police brought them back to the border and forced them back into occupied France near Belfort or Saint-Dizier. They were among the ten or so very first refugees turned back at that border. They were immediately caught by the German border guards or Feldgendarmerie, jailed in Belfort, sent to Drancy, and deported to Auschwitz on August 24, less than a week after their failed attempt to enter the Swiss safe haven.

 

Source: Swiss Federal Archives E 4264 (-) 1985/196, Nr. 3757; Register of the jail in Porrentruy, reproduced in SPIRA, Henry, «La frontière jurassienne au quotidien, 1939-1945», Geneva, 2010, p. 514.