The origins of a long forgotten block of granite in the centre of a Swiss town spark controversy.
Questions have been raised over what to do with the large granite monument at the Swiss cemeteryFor decades the huge monolithic block of granite in the middle of the cemetery in the Swiss town of Chur was ignored by passers-by; no one seemed to know quite what it was.
Nowadays the monument at the cemetery, untended, is covered in moss. The engravings on it are difficult to discern.The origins of the monument and its links to the Nazi presence in Switzerland were unknown There were many thousands of Germans living in Switzerland at the time, and, Martin says, they were organised. "In Switzerland all these organisations you know from Germany existed. The National Socialist Party, the German Labour Front, the Hitler Youth. They were all here, but only for Germans, not for Swiss people."
While Switzerland still has no official memorial to the Holocaust, parliament did approve plans for one in March last year. There are, however, around 50 unofficial monuments. So complete was this collective amnesia that today, among people like Stefanie, born decades after the war, the origins of the monument, and the Nazi presence in Switzerland, were a revelation.
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