Arthur Bloch

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Arthur Bloch (* 1882 in Aarberg ; † April 16, 1942 in Payerne ) was a Swiss Jew who was murdered for racist reasons in Payerne by five men who sympathized with the German National Socialists . The significance of the case lies in the fact that this anti-Semitic murder took place in Switzerland during World War II .

assassination

The Bern-born cattle dealer Bloch was lured into a stall on Rue à Thomas during a cattle market in Payerne on the pretext of wanting to sell him a cow. There he was slain and shot. The 4,000 francs he carried on market day were stolen. After the murder, the perpetrators dismembered the corpse, hid the body parts in three milk tansen (handmade paper or jugs) and sunk them in Lake Neuchâtel . Bloch's clothes were burned, the looted money and the cremation residues were hidden.

His wife, who was expecting his return for dinner, first called her daughter in Zurich . A few days later, she filed a missing person report and hired a private detective in Lausanne . Advertisements with pictures of the missing person appeared in French-speaking Swiss newspapers, offering 1,000 francs as a reward for useful information that would lead to his / her discovery.

Prosecuting the perpetrators

The perpetrators - the 34-year-old garage operator Fernand Ischi and his apprentice Georges Ballotte, the brothers Robert and Max Marmier and their servant Fritz Joss - were caught on April 24, 1942. They immediately confessed. The three main perpetrators were sentenced to life imprisonment by a jury court in Payerne on February 20, 1943 , an underage accomplice and an assistant received prison terms of 20 and 15 years respectively. The defendants stated that they were personally unaware of the victim. They also stated that they had jointly sentenced him to death on the grounds "Because he was a Jew". The five convicted belonged to a group of ten belonging to the banned organization “Mouvement National” in Payerne.

The former Protestant pastor Philippe Lugrin from Prilly near Lausanne, a leader of the Swiss National Movement and a member of the Ligue vaudoise , who instigated the perpetrators, was initially able to flee to occupied Paris with the support of the German consulate and later to Frankfurt am Main . After the war he was transferred to Switzerland by the Allies and sentenced to 20 years in prison on June 5, 1947 for inciting intentional homicide.

At the beginning of the trial, strangers distributed leaflets outside the courthouse. The content of the leaflet was: «Vaudois! The murderers, the executioners of Payerne, did on a small scale what we should have done on a large scale. Open your eyes and judge! ». The leaflet was read in the courtroom. As part of the investigation, a German agent was arrested several months after the murder. He wanted to hand over arms and money to the remaining members of the group. The agent was sentenced to life imprisonment. The agent also gave instructions for acts of sabotage on bridges and railways. The agent stated that he had acted on behalf of a "South German spy agency". One of the five defendants should have attended training in Germany several weeks after the murder. The murder was planned as the start of a wave of terrorism in Switzerland. A bomb attack on a department store in Lausanne and several attacks on synagogues in Lausanne and other cities were planned. A list of names of other murders was also in preparation.

Work-up

The recovered body parts were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Bern-Wankdorf . The gravestone bears the inscription "God knows why". His wife Myria Bloch, born in 1893, followed him to their joint grave in 1947.

The fate of Arthur Bloch was dealt with by the Payerne-born writer Jacques Chessex in the book “Un Juif pour l'exemple”, which appeared in 2009. Chessex was eight years old at the time of the murder and knew both the victim and the perpetrator. He had already addressed the event in 1967 in the volume of stories "Reste avec nous" under the title "Un crime en 1942". Un Juif pour l'exemple was filmed in 2016 by Jacob Berger , with Bruno Ganz in the title role.

In 1974 Walter Matthias Diggelmann referred to the case in his story "Der Jud Bloch". In 1977 the 82-minute documentary “Analyze d'un crime” by Yvan Dalain and the book “Le Crime Nazi de Payerne” by Jacques Pilet followed . In 2001 the case of Hans Stutz was taken up in the book "Der Judenmord von Payerne"; Stutz criticized in particular that the perpetrators had been punished, but that the racist motive had largely been ignored.

In May 2009 - a few months after the publication of Jacques Chessex's book - the Payerne City Parliament passed a resolution commemorating the crime. The city had previously been criticized by Chessex for not wanting to face the past and trivializing the murder. On March 1st of the same year, Chessex was publicly ridiculed at the Carnival in Payerne.

literature

  • Jacques Chessex: Un Juif pour l'exemple. Grasset & Fasquelle, Paris 2009. ISBN 978-2246743514 .
  • Hans Stutz: The murder of Jews from Payerne. Rotpunktverlag, Zurich 2001, ISBN 978-3858692115 .
  • Jacques Pilet: Le crime nazi de Payerne - 1942 en Suisse: un Juif tué «pour l'exemple». Favre, Lausanne 1977.

Movies

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Andrea Kucera: The murder of Jews in Payerne - During the Second World War, a Jew in Vaud is the victim of a violent crime . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . Zurich April 10, 2017, p. 11 .
  2. ↑ “Un Juif pour l'exemple”, un meurtre antisémite, du roman à l'écran in: Le Temps , August 3, 2016
  3. ↑ Werner Rings: Schweiz im Krieg 1933-1945, Verlag Ex Libris, Zurich, 1974, page 113
  4. ^ Claude Cantini: Lugrin, Philippe. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  5. ↑ Werner Rings: Schweiz im Krieg 1933-1945, Verlag Ex Libris, Zurich, 1974, page 114
  6. ↑ Robert Savary (contributor 48881410): Arthur Bloch. In: Find A Grave . February 2, 2016, accessed January 1, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Martin Zingg. Payerne, April 16, 1942: A visit to the writer Jacques Chessex in Lausanne. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , April 25, 2009, p. B1.
  8. ↑ Heinz Roschewski. Not a word about the motive or background. Der Bund , May 19, 2001.
  9. ^ After the murder of the Jews in 1942: Payerne finally faces history. Tages-Anzeiger , May 7, 2009.
  10. ^ Assassinat d'Arthur Bloch: Payerne réagit. Télévision Suisse Romande , 7 May 2009.
personal data
SURNAME Bloch, Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss murder victims
DATE OF BIRTH 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Aarberg
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 1942
Place of death Payerne