For those who doubt that ‘amoral’ neutrality is essentially immoral

Published: December 29, 2011 at 7:47pm

The Press Association, today:

137 pardoned over rescue of Jews

More than 100 people, judged to be criminals because they helped Jews escape Nazi persecution during the Second World War, have had their names cleared by a Swiss commission.

Some were jailed or fined, and many lost jobs under Swiss laws on neutrality.

The commission was set up in 2004 after a new law on “rehabilitation” took effect.

The law allowed for posthumous recognition of people unfairly criminalised because they smuggled Jewish refugees across borders between 1938 and 1945.

The commission, due to end in 2011, said its aim was to repair the damage caused by a “grave injustice” of history.

A total of 137 were cleared but only one person, Aimee Stitelman of Geneva, lived long enough to see her name cleared in 2004, and died months later.




15 Comments Comment

  1. Il-Gwida says:

    Tonight there will be Dr Edwin Grech on Net TV with Dion; he’s got a scoop.

    Tomorrow on Xarabank we will see mummy’s boy with his blonde proud of-her-son mother talking about when he WANTED to make the midnight sermon and he got it or rather she got it for him.

  2. DV says:

    If Dr Grech knows the names of those involved in his daughter’s murder he should say who they are. This is not just a personal tragedy but it is of national importance that we know who it was.

    • Toro says:

      That’s what I thought when I read the article. While one has to feel sorry for the man, what has been reported does not make a lot of sense.

      He says that a prime suspect could not be interrogated as he is/was in the UK. Didn’t Interpol exist in 1977?

    • Dee says:

      The impression he gave during this evening’s programme was that he knew. In which case he is duty bound to inform the police so that this case will be closed once and for all .

  3. Banderas says:

    A tragedy which no parent can ever come to terms with, and Prof. Grech has my deepest sympathy, but…..my God did he waffle !

  4. Spock says:

    Professor Grech’s and Dr.Chetcuti Caruana’s serious claims aired on NET TV’s programme made potential criminals of several scores of respectable and respected members of today’s medical profession who, 34 years ago, were either consultants, junior housemen or final / third year medical students.

    If the Professor or Dr. C.C. know who the perpetrator was, they should name and shame him/them publicly so that the case will be closed .

    Their reluctance to do so and the gratuitous slurs on fellow medics and Mater Dei (especially from Dr.C.C.) has placed scores of members of the medical profession and the doctors’union, irrespective of their political beliefs, in a situation that could prove harmful to them or their families in more ways then one, especially now that election fever is on the rise.

    • Jozef says:

      I didn’t watch the programme but judging from the articles in the press this morning, it seems Dr.Grech has new evidence.

      Closure is also relevant in its entirety. Life seems to have been cheap back then. I sincerely hope the death of his daughter isn’t considered by some as having been balanced by the one in Gudja.

      It’s also worthy to note that one of them does not exist in a part of the media.

      • Spock says:

        According to records that are freely available online, not all of the final year medical students left the island to qaulify in the UK .At the time of the doctors’ lock out , there were no fourth year students (or second year students for all that matters) either, but final, third and first year students.

    • Antoine Vella says:

      Edwin Grech is also accusing “a carpenter”, apparently with some missing fingers. Truth is he makes accusations haphazardly and, at one point, even pointed at one of his own colleagues who was breaking the strike with him.

      • Spock says:

        Missing fingers is not an exclusive characteristic of carpenters.

        People dabbling with explosives in quarries or in the firework industry carry such a trademark too.

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        And surgeons who accidentally amuputate their own fingers. I mean really. Yesterday’s “revelations” were nothing more than the usual series of Maltese-style circumlocutions and nudge-nudge-speak. “Avukat b’ufficju fic-centru ta’ Malta” indeed. “Kien carpenter” indeed. Medical students indeed. If Edwin Grech has the names, he should have given them. Otherwise, we are forced to conclude that he has nothing.

        Ah, and “the hidden hand”. Which hidden hand? The PN government’s?

        What a bunch of sensationalist Maltese tripe.

  5. Carlos Bonavia says:

    Will state broadcasting be Franco’s next causa belli after he gets his way with the splitting up of the Justice portfolio ?

  6. Spock says:

    Many parents went through the trauma of having a child still-born or severely damaged at birth during the doctors’ lock-out at St Luke’s Hospital. There were other tragedies, too, all related to the replacement of highly trained Maltese doctors with a motley crew of strike-breakers imported from friendly regimes.

    To help them get over THEIR tragic loss, they were instead arrested, interrogated and harassed by the police.

    Yesterday’s programme was yet another reminder of what life was really like in the golden Mintoff era.

  7. Il-Gwida says:

    Sorry for derailing your discussion, Daphne.
    Tonight we will see Mummy’s boy on Xarabank , not Arriva’s surely.
    Can’t wait!

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