Federal Archives completes handover of microfilms to Holocaust Museum
Switzerland has completed the transfer to the United States of historical data on the treatment of Jews in Switzerland during the Second World War. The documents will be stored in the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
The director of the federal archives, Christoph Graf, handed over the last of 13 boxes of microfilms at a special ceremony in the US capital, attended by the Swiss ambassador, Alfred Defago.
The microfilms relate to Jews who fled Nazi persecution and sought refuge in Switzerland.
The federal archives began handing over the films in 1997, after finalising a bilateral agreement on the exchange of documents with the US.
Defago said Switzerland had nothing to gain from keeping its past buried away in archives. He said the Holocaust Museum was the perfect place for the documentation and would allow people to discover the truth.
The Holocaust Museum is home to around 1.4 million documents on the fate of Jews.
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