Swiss photographer Beat Mumenthaler in partnership with the Gamaraal Foundation, has created an absolutely haunting photo series entitled “The Last Swiss Holocaust Survivors“, which captures the quiet dignity of those who survived the Holocaust and made Switzerland their home. The images are as beautiful as they are heartbreaking, as these people are of the last generation who bore witness to this horrific time in history.
As a neutral state, Switzerland survived the Second World War largely unscathed. Who are the Swiss Holocaust survivors? The vast majority were not Swiss citizens at the time. Rather, they came from the German Reich or other European countries and as Jews were directly affected by the Nazi persecution. Some survived concentration and extermination camps, others were able to escape by fleeing or hiding. Most came to Switzerland only after the Second World War. The fact that there are also Holocaust survivors in Switzerland only became public awareness in the course of the debate about the dormant assets and the historical investigations of the Bergier Commission in the late 1990s.
via Vice UK
