Jewish Refugees in Switzerland

Re “Jews Mistreated in Swiss WWII Camps, Study Says,” Jan. 13: As a Jewish refugee in Switzerland from April 1944 until the end of World War II, I was appalled to read your article. During my family’s stay there we were treated courteously and with respect. Although initially our family was separated, in part to permit children to attend school, the Swiss authorities quickly arranged for all members of the family to be within the same geographic area.

The only time we slept on straw was on the first night after we crossed the Alps from Italy and arrived in a remote Swiss village. My only memory of soldiers with rifles--which I would never describe as “at gunpoint”--was in a refugee collection center, where we stayed just a few days before being sent to our final destinations: boarding school for me, a Swiss family for my 10-year-old sister and a vacant hotel used to accommodate refugees for my parents.

Depicting refugee activities as slave labor stretches both truth and imagination. When I was sent to a “camp” everyone had a job. I was the mailman for the camp. My parents had various duties in the camp hotel on Lake Lugano, but were never assigned to private homes to “clean toilets.”

At best, the study by Alan Morris Schom twists the truth.

AL A. FINCI

Los Angeles