The Lost Honour of Bystanders? The Case of Jewish Emissaries in Switzerland

The prevailing emphasis placed by the historiography of the bystanders to the Holocaust on the cognitive aspect of internalizing an unprecedented truth, and the exclusive emphasis placed on the rescue of life, tends to reflect the point of view of the heirs of both victors and survivors, but not necessarily the point of view of those who were ‘drowned’. Through the example of Jewish emissaries stationed in Switzerland I would like to suggest a different view of bystanders, one modelled by those who have engaged themselves to help the Jews of Europe during the war at the time when most of the European Jewry was still alive. Those bystanders, many of whom worked against the orders of their superiors, represent a different model of bystander, rooted in both, the model link then existing between morals and politics and the desperate cries of the victims whom they were willing to hear.