Camp Life
Single male Dutch refugees in Switzerland were subjected to forced labour in special camps. Elderly people, single girls, married couples and people in bad health were allowed to stay in former hotels. As Piet and Alice as well as Jack and Li were not married yet, they were separated. The girls had to stay in Hôtel des Narcisses in the small village of Chamby, high up on the mountainside above Montreux. It was once a very fancy hotel with a beautiful panoramic view over Lake Geneva, but from a business perspective it had never been successful, probably because it is just a little too far away from Montreux and the lake, despite the little train station right in front of the hotel.Chamby itself is little more than a hamlet and quite unknown, although as a matter of fact it seems to play a role in Ernest Hemingway's classic A Farewell to Arms. In the fifth part of the book the two main characters of the story live for a while in a small pension, which is situated close to a station at the Montreux-Oberland-Bernois railway track, a little above the Chernex station. It is very likely that this is Chamby, although Hemingway does not actually mention its name. His main characters live in the pension during the autumn and winter of 1917-18. By coincidence Aimée Dostoyevsky, daughter of another famous writer, stayed in the Hôtel des Narcisses in the winter of 1918 to recover from a severe tonsilitis, which she caught while tracing the tracks of her father when writing his biography. This little fact about Dostoyevski's daughter comes from real life, however, and is not a literary invention.
In 1943 and also in real life, Piet and Jack were sent to a labour camp in Cossonay, shown on the map at the bottom of this page and the next. In his memoires Piet described life in the labour camp extensively.
"Cossonay was not a Swiss resort. The amenities were shocking, the food was bad and insufficient and the work conditions were harsh; we had to dry a swamp. The management consisted of a Lager Kommandant (camp commander), a Swiss German Air Force officer, called Bachmann, and an Arbeitsleiter (works manager) who was a Swiss Italian, by the name of Botticelli and his Alsatian.
The swamp was about half an hour walk from the camp. That meant getting up at six o'clock in the morning, get a wash, if the water was not frozen, a parade to pay tribute to the Schweize Fahne (the Swiss flag), then a breakfast one would not give to a dog and then we were on our way, to take out tree stumps, hacking them away with a pick. If we could not get it out of the frozen ground we called the Dynamite Boys. They came and put dynamite underneath and blew it up. Even if it was not necessary the boys were called, because the Swiss Arbeitsleiter would blow his whistle and we had to disappear out of the area.
The swamp was surrounded by low hills and some sort of dykes. On top of one was a tavern and most of us sought refuge in that establishment for a quick Pernod. When Botticelli blew his whistle to indicate the coast was clear and we had to go back to work, hardly anybody was there. He always was accompanied by his German Shepherd and sent the dog out to find us. There were too many of us, so the dog got confused. One day he woke up to the reality where we were, so he talked to the innkeeper and threatened him with the Polizei if he ever served drinks to us.
The inn had a big cellar so that is where the inn keeper subsequently hid us, when Botticelli came to see if we were there. It was an empty pub, according to the publican. He had a Pernod himself unaware that he sat on top of us.
We also sabotaged the works. Small 15 cm culverts were dug across the field ending up in 40 cm pipes which drained the water away. It never happened because at the end we blocked the pipes, which should drain the water into the collectors. As a new Arbeitsleiter said it was "Alles für die Katze"."
The swamp was about half an hour walk from the camp. That meant getting up at six o'clock in the morning, get a wash, if the water was not frozen, a parade to pay tribute to the Schweize Fahne (the Swiss flag), then a breakfast one would not give to a dog and then we were on our way, to take out tree stumps, hacking them away with a pick. If we could not get it out of the frozen ground we called the Dynamite Boys. They came and put dynamite underneath and blew it up. Even if it was not necessary the boys were called, because the Swiss Arbeitsleiter would blow his whistle and we had to disappear out of the area.
The swamp was surrounded by low hills and some sort of dykes. On top of one was a tavern and most of us sought refuge in that establishment for a quick Pernod. When Botticelli blew his whistle to indicate the coast was clear and we had to go back to work, hardly anybody was there. He always was accompanied by his German Shepherd and sent the dog out to find us. There were too many of us, so the dog got confused. One day he woke up to the reality where we were, so he talked to the innkeeper and threatened him with the Polizei if he ever served drinks to us.
The inn had a big cellar so that is where the inn keeper subsequently hid us, when Botticelli came to see if we were there. It was an empty pub, according to the publican. He had a Pernod himself unaware that he sat on top of us.
We also sabotaged the works. Small 15 cm culverts were dug across the field ending up in 40 cm pipes which drained the water away. It never happened because at the end we blocked the pipes, which should drain the water into the collectors. As a new Arbeitsleiter said it was "Alles für die Katze"."
Nearly seventy years later, history has proven that all efforts had been 'for the cats' indeed. In September 2007 Wim van Bemmel visited Cossonay, as his uncle Cor van Bemmel had been interned in the Cossonay camp for several months in 1942. Wim discovered that the Swiss have given the former swamp back to nature. Piet continues:
"The Dutch refugees came in different waves. First were the Jews, then Dutch officers, followed by students who refused to sign a loyalty declaration with the Germans, and then the odd-bods like us.
With the students came the student tradition of initiation for every newcomer. It was sometimes very cruel, but it created a bit of diversion from the dreadful camp life. There was a 'Blood Council' comprising of a chairman and two 'councillors', behind them three masked executioners. The members of the blood council were all jurists and although the whole procedure was a joke, it had a professional atmosphere. The newcomer was unaware of this till on the fourth day of his arrival, at three o'clock at night, he was taken out of his bed, brought to the dining room to face his tormentors. On a winter night with 6 degrees below zero that was not a picnic, neither for us, all residents of the barrack about 20 of us had to attend.
The victim was interrogated for the reasons why he came to the Schweiz and then he had to give a speech on a subject set by the blood council e.g. the sex life of ants or what did he do to get rid of Hitler and that sort of silly title. Some guys, mainly students, did a good and funny job, but still had to run naked around the camp, in spite of the temperature and the hour of the night. There were other punishments, which should never be revealed.
There was a purpose in this madness namely to detect any spies, who infiltrated refugees camps. Jack and I were exempt by the blood council because Jack went through this the first time he was in the camp and I because I came with Jack."
With the students came the student tradition of initiation for every newcomer. It was sometimes very cruel, but it created a bit of diversion from the dreadful camp life. There was a 'Blood Council' comprising of a chairman and two 'councillors', behind them three masked executioners. The members of the blood council were all jurists and although the whole procedure was a joke, it had a professional atmosphere. The newcomer was unaware of this till on the fourth day of his arrival, at three o'clock at night, he was taken out of his bed, brought to the dining room to face his tormentors. On a winter night with 6 degrees below zero that was not a picnic, neither for us, all residents of the barrack about 20 of us had to attend.
The victim was interrogated for the reasons why he came to the Schweiz and then he had to give a speech on a subject set by the blood council e.g. the sex life of ants or what did he do to get rid of Hitler and that sort of silly title. Some guys, mainly students, did a good and funny job, but still had to run naked around the camp, in spite of the temperature and the hour of the night. There were other punishments, which should never be revealed.
There was a purpose in this madness namely to detect any spies, who infiltrated refugees camps. Jack and I were exempt by the blood council because Jack went through this the first time he was in the camp and I because I came with Jack."
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