Study: Swiss banned Gypsies fleeing Hitler

GENEVA - Neutral Switzerland, widely criticized for its treatment of Jews fleeing Hitler's Nazi regime, banned Gypsy refugees from entering the country altogether, according to a study released Friday.

There isn't enough information to estimate the total number of Gypsies turned away to die at the hands of the Nazis, concluded the study, which was done by a panel of international and Swiss historians.

It said the Swiss failed to grant asylum even after they knew Gypsies were targets of Hitler's genocide - with a special camp fitted with gas chambers in Auschwitz. An estimated 100,000 Gypsies were murdered by the Nazis.

While the Swiss lifted the ban on Gypsies only in 1972, they hadn't been fully enforcing it for some time as it became increasingly unpopular. A 1951 Swiss police document said the policy remained in effect, saying ''that Gypsies in the true sense of the word no longer live in Switzerland.''

While the study focused on the treatment of Gypsies under the Nazi era, researchers found that Switzerland had been putting foreign Gypsies in internment camps since 1913.

The government-appointed panel of historians was headed by Swiss historian Jean-Francois Bergier and the late Sybil Milton, a U.S. expert on the Holocaust and the Gypsies. She died in October.

The experts last year criticized Switzerland for closing its borders to Jews in 1942, when it became known that Hitler was implementing his ''final solution'' that was to kill six million Jews and others.

Switzerland admitted 27,000 Jewish refugees during the Nazi era, but turned back a similar number, historians have said.

Other European countries discriminated against Gypsies, the study said. Fascist Italy started driving them out in the 1920s, and the Netherlands and other countries followed suit with their own expulsion policies in the early 1930s.

In contrast to the extensive information about the plight of the Jews, there is little documentation about Gypsies. In general, the only organization that kept any records on them in the first half of this century was the International Criminal Police Commission - the forerunner of Interpol.

Like other European countries, Switzerland also used forced sterilization against Gypsies, the study said. It noted similar practices in Scandinavia, aimed at keeping poor people and those with mental problems from passing on their genes.

Until a recent $1.25 billion settlement in New York, Swiss banks were criticized for failing to return the assets of Holocaust victims to their heirs - including Gypsies. The settlement includes a provision to give part to Gypsy victims and their descendants

The report used the Gypsies' preferred names for themselves - Sinti and Roma.