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Swiss historical drama ‘Labyrinth of Peace’ shatters the myth of Switzerland’s neutrality in WWII
It’s Switzerland in 1945 and the war has just ended. A group of deeply traumatized, ragged-looking Jewish teenagers recently liberated from Buchenwald have been sent to live in a former Swiss school building.
A young Swiss woman named Klara cares for them, while her new husband, Johann, runs her family’s textile business, whose success is dependent on the work of unrepentant Nazis living in comfort in Swiss exile. Johann’s brother, Egon, home from the war after five years working as a Swiss border guard, is wracked by guilt for having to turn away Jewish mothers and children at the frontier. His new postwar job in the attorney general’s office: hunting down ex-Nazis.
This is the premise of “Labyrinth of Peace,” an engrossing Swiss drama set in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust that is now available exclusively on ChaiFlicks, the Jewish streaming service in North America, Australia and New Zealand.
Shot in Switzerland and released in the country to great acclaim in 2020, the six-episode series is fraught with drama, romance and moral struggles.
“Labyrinth of Peace” is the brainchild of award-winning Swiss-Italian screenwriter and director Petra Volpe, who wanted to tell the compelling story of a little-known chapter of postwar history while also spotlighting the morally questionable role Switzerland took during and after the war.
“Switzerland wanted to show that they were on the right side of history, since they knew they had failed the Jews by locking down the country” during the Holocaust, and therefore took in Jewish refugees after the war, Volpe said in an interview from her home in Brooklyn. “When actual refugees arrived and they weren’t cute children younger than 12, and someone asked where the little boys were, the rabbi said of the youngest ones, ‘They were all gassed.’ Switzerland wasn’t happy when teenagers showed up. They didn’t treat them as nicely as they should have.”
The Buchenwald Boys, as they were called, had lost their childhoods and most of their families during the war years. More than 60,000 Jews died in Buchenwald — including my great-grandfather, after he, my grandfather and uncle were arrested on Kristallnacht and sent to the concentration camp. But some 900 youths survived and were among those liberated by U.S. forces.
Jewish refugee agencies came to their rescue, and they were sent to various sites in France, England and Switzerland for rehabilitation. “Labyrinth of Peace” turns the story of a group sent to Switzerland into an absorbing historical drama that belies the myth of Swiss neutrality and demonstrates how guilt and moral conflicts ran through families even after combat ended.
“Labyrinth of Peace” illuminates a little-known chapter of postwar history while spotlighting the morally questionable role Switzerland took during and after World War II. (ChaiFlicks)
In the series, the recently liberated Buchenwald Boys find themselves at the heart of many more interests than anyone first realizes.
One of the teens, Herschel, falls in love with the Swiss Klara, whose father’s textile factory profited handsomely during the war. The family home is rich in sumptuous detail, from silk damask wall coverings to lush oriental carpets covering the floors to the gold-rimmed Limoges tea pot from which servants pour drinks. Nearby, the Buchenwald Boys live in empty classrooms without sufficient food or clothing, after arriving in the country wearing little but rags.
In real life, the 370 or so Buchenwald Boys who were sent to Switzerland became political pawns, Volpe says. They were promised several months of rest and rehabilitation, but their stay in Switzerland was cut short when authorities in pre-state Israel told them they were going to Palestine. Most didn’t want to go; some asked to settle in Australia and others wanted to stay in Switzerland.
“Everyone just wanted to bring them to Israel and get them out of sight,” said Volpe, who is not Jewish but is married to a Jewish man. “There’s collective guilt.”
In the series, the character of Egon is based on a real Swiss border guard whose story is known from frequent letters he wrote home to his wife. Egon is introduced to viewers as he arrives home just in time for his brother’s wedding to Klara. He is wracked with guilt and anger.
“Every day he had to drag mothers and young kids back across the border and it’s killing him,” Volpe said.
Desperate for expiation, Egon gets drawn into the U.S. authorities’ search for Nazis who moved to Switzerland and are living under cover with adopted names and identities.
Meanwhile, his brother Johann — Klara’s husband — is trying to transform his father-in-law’s textile business into a success by producing a low-cost synthetic alternative to nylon. Johann touts the achievement as a pure Swiss creation, but it turns out that it’s the work of a Nazi chemist working under an assumed name in the family lab — putting Johann in a morally dubious position and creating conflict with his wife.
Many Nazis who fled Germany after the war found new lives in Switzerland, where their pasts largely were overlooked. The same happened in America, too; the U.S. government put ex-Nazi scientists to work developing military hardware and even rockets for the country’s fledgling space program.
The setting for “Labyrinth of Peace” is a verdant Swiss school where Jewish teens recently liberated from the Buchenwald concentration camp are sent to be rehabilitated. (ChaiFlicks)
“Switzerland imported the knowledge of German war criminals,” said Volpe, who grew up near Zurich, lived in Berlin for 20 years as an adult and has resided in New York for the past decade. “They tried to hire scientists from the chemical industry. Swiss economic success is based on knowledge we took from the Nazis.”
Volpe’s series shatters the notion of Switzerland’s ostensible neutrality and demonstrates how many Swiss shared in the war’s sins.
“War criminals were treated like royalty in Switzerland because they had money, and refugees were treated like criminals,” observed Volpe.
“Labyrinth of Peace” was a hit when it aired on Swiss national television, and last year won awards at several Jewish film festivals in the United States. The series is now available nationwide on ChaiFlicks, the subscription streaming service that focuses on Jewish and Israeli content.
For Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 18, the JCC of Manhattan will screen two episodes from the series followed by a Q&A with Volpe.
At the end of the series (no spoilers!), Klara and a friend are shown driving while she opens a thin book that Herschel, the eldest of the Buchenwald Boys who fell in love with her, wrote and gave her. In his introduction Herschel writes, “I have done my best to prevent what was meant to be prevented. The eradication of us and our history.”
“The main message in his diary is: ‘They didn’t erase our voice and I can still tell my story,’ Volpe said. “That’s a form of victory also, and a very important message.”
Watch “Labyrinth of Peace” here.
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Mamdani visits Holocaust survivor at her apartment on Holocaust Remembrance Day
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday made a private visit to the Manhattan apartment of an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor, a gesture to a Jewish community divided over his positions, and reflecting his focus on affordability and dignity for New Yorkers living on fixed incomes.
Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Mamdani spent 40 minutes talking with Olga Spiegel, who was born in France in 1943 after her family fled there, believing French children would not be separated from their parents. Her father was later deported to a concentration camp. Spiegel escaped with her mother into Italy, hiding for months in a stable before being sheltered by a priest in Rome until liberation, according to Blue Card, an organization that assists Holocaust survivors in need and organized the visit.
Mamdani allocated discretionary funds to the organization while serving as a member of the New York State Assembly, and its executive director, Masha Pearl, was a member of Mamdani’s transition team.
New York is home to the largest population of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel, with an estimated 14,000 to 15,000 living in the metropolitan area. More than 5,000 are at or below the poverty line, most live alone and many are homebound. Nearly 40% struggle to meet basic needs such as food, housing and medical care, according to the organization, and 84% survive on less than $24,000 a year, largely from Social Security and modest pensions.
City Hall described the private visit, which was not listed on the mayor’s public schedule, as warm and welcoming.
“It was an incredibly powerful meeting,” said Monica Klein, a spokesperson for the mayor, “and drove home that the Holocaust is not simply a thing of the past, but something that impacts countless New Yorkers every single day.”
An artist, Spiegel settled in New York in the mid-1960s and has spent the past 48 years in the same rent-stabilized apartment on the lower east side of Manhattan. Spiegel showed Mamdani her studio and artwork, and the two bonded over their shared love of art. The mayor also shared his family’s immigration story.
The visit came amid growing scrutiny of Mamdani’s approach to Jewish issues. His anti-Zionist worldview and revocation of executive orders tied to antisemitism and pro-Palestinian protests on his first day in office were met with criticism from mainstream Jewish organizations.
During the mayoral primary last year, Mamdani faced backlash over his decision not to co-sponsor a resolution commemorating the Holocaust in the state legislature. Mamdani pushed back, saying he voted in favor of the Holocaust Remembrance Day resolution every year since he entered the Assembly in 2021 “to honor the more than 6 million Jewish people murdered by the Nazis.”
In a statement posted on X earlier Tuesday, Mamdani said Holocaust Remembrance Day “calls on us to do more than reflect; it calls on us to act — to confront antisemitism wherever it exists and to reject all forms of hatred and dehumanization.”
The post Mamdani visits Holocaust survivor at her apartment on Holocaust Remembrance Day appeared first on The Forward.
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ISIS Threat Surges Across Syria and Beyond, Raising Alarm Bells From Iraq to Sub-Saharan Africa
Islamic State – Central Africa Province released documentary entitled “Jihad and Dawah” covering group’s campaigns in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo and battles against Congolese and Ugandan armies. Photo: Screenshot
US and Iraqi officials are warning of a resurgent terrorist threat posed by Islamic State (ISIS), with the number of militants in Syria reportedly soaring to 10,000 and regional instability raising concern from Iraq to Sub-Saharan Africa.
Earlier this week, Iraqi intelligence services sounded the alarm over the surging ISIS threat, warning of a sharp increase in the terrorist group’s fighters in northern Syria, the country’s western neighbor, and expressing growing concerns among officials.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Iraqi intelligence chief Hamid al-Shatri revealed that ISIS fighters in Syria have skyrocketed from roughly 2,000 to 10,000 in just one year.
This number far surpasses last year’s estimate in the UN Security Council report, which placed the total of ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq at roughly 3,000 as of August.
“This represents a real danger for Iraq, because ISIS — whether in Syria, Iraq, or anywhere else in the world — is a single organization and will likely seek to establish a new foothold to launch attacks,” al-Shatri told the Washington Post.
He also noted that the terrorists who joined ISIS in Syria over the past year include men previously linked to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and al-Qaeda, many of whom have expressed dissatisfaction with the current political leadership.
As the Syrian government advances to retake territory long controlled by Kurdish forces, Iraqi officials are increasingly concerned about a resurgent ISIS threat.
In the wake of escalating violent clashes across Syria over the past few weeks, chaos erupted in regional prisons holding thousands of ISIS members, allowing many to escape into the desert.
Even though many escaped ISIS members were later recaptured, the Iraqi government rapidly deployed thousands of troops to bolster its border with Syria, warning that the threat of further attacks remained high.
Last week, the US military began relocating ISIS detainees from northeastern Syrian prisons, formerly controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to Iraqi facilities following the SDF’s withdrawal as Syrian government forces advanced into the area.
On Sunday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said the decision to temporarily transfer ISIS detainees to local prisons aims to safeguard both Iraq’s national security and the stability of the broader region.
According to the US Central Command, around 2,500 ISIS fighters remained at large in Syria and Iraq in 2024, but no updates have been released since.
These latest warnings from the Iraqi government come amid rising concerns following the departure this month of the last US troops from Ain al-Asad Airbase in western Anbar province, bringing to a close a mission that had supported local forces in combating ISIS terrorism.
The United States is now focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa, where analysts have identified rising Islamist terrorist threats, making the region a central concern in the fight against global jihadist terrorism.
Last week, the deputy commander of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), Lt. General John Brennan, said Washington is stepping up equipment shipments and intelligence support to Nigeria as part of a wider government effort to strengthen its presence across the region and assist African forces in combating Islamic State-linked militants.
Brennan also revealed that the US military continues to engage closely with the armed forces of the junta-led Sahel nations — Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali.
Under US President Donald Trump, “we’ve gotten a lot more aggressive and are working with partners to target … [regional] threats, mainly ISIS,” Brennan told reporters.
“From Somalia to Nigeria, the problem set is connected. So, we’re trying to take it apart and then provide partners with the information they need,” he continued. “It’s been about more enabling partners and then providing them equipment and capabilities with less restrictions so that they can be more successful.”
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Antisemitism Witnessed by 78% of EU Teachers in Classrooms, UN Survey Finds
Krakow, Poland – Oct. 5, 2024: Pro-Palestinian activists in front of the Institute of Sociology at Jagiellonian University. Photo: Artur Widak via Reuters Connect
Teachers across the European Union are witnessing antisemitism as a near daily social occurrence in the classroom and the workplace, according to a new survey issued by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Released on Tuesday, the survey of 2,030 teachers found that 78 percent have “encountered at least one antisemitic incident between students,” and 27 percent have “witnessed nine or more such incidents.” It added that 61 percent saw students promoting Holocaust denialism, while others had students who drew or wore Nazi symbols. Forty-two percent witnessed “other teachers being antisemitic.”
“Hate speech, notably antisemitism and Holocaust denial, has reached levels not seen since World War II,” UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany said in a statement. “Most teachers have never received specific training to confront this reality, including the consequences related to AI development. UNESCO provides policymakers with unique tools to empower teachers in more than 30 countries — from classrooms and campuses to sports clubs — and soon even more.”
Included in a UNESCO report titled “Addressing Antisemitism Through Education: A Survey of Teachers’ Knowledge and Understanding,” the survey comes amid a global rise in antisemitism following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
Since then, many European antisemitic incidents have occurred on college campuses, including someone assaulting a group of Jewish students while shouting “Zionist fascists” at the University of Strasbourg and the University of Vienna hosting an “Intifada Camp,” a pro-Hamas encampment. At the Free University of Brussels campus in Solbosch, a pro-Hamas group illegally occupied an administrative building and renamed it after a terrorist. Elsewhere across Europe, anti-Zionists damaged property to the tune of hundreds of thousands of Euros, desecrated Jewish religious symbols, graffitied Jewish students’ dormitories with swastikas, and carried out gang assaults on Jewish student leaders.
Violence in the streets of Europe’s major cities is also a regular occurrence. In July 2025, a group of people wielding knives attacked Jews walking home from an event on the Greek island of Rhodes; in Davos, Switzerland a man spat on, attacked, and verbally abused a Jewish couple— an offense he reportedly perpetrated multiple times against other Jewish people.
European governments are responding to the antisemitism crisis by paying closer attention to its linkage with the politics and ideology of anti-Zionism, a connection many political leaders hesitated to acknowledge and which UNESCO, despite having exuded anti-Zionist hostility in the past, also cited as a leading cause of rising antisemitism.
“Almost half of teachers (43.6 percent) had encountered students articulating hateful comments in relation to the State of Israel either once or twice, or often,” the report, summarizing the survey results, stated. “Hateful comments targeted at the State of Israel might not necessarily be antisemitism and may be motivated by other forms of hostility. However, comments motivated by hate are significantly more likely to include prejudice, or incite further dehumanization and violence.”
The document added, “Moreover, the prevalence of emotionally charged comments around the conflict in the Middle East highlights the salience of this topic and the need for targeted training and guidance for teachers on how to handle difficult conversations in an increasingly polarized environment.”
Across the Atlantic, teachers in the US have seen a surge of antisemitism in K-12 schools.
According to another survey conducted by the StandWithUs Jewish advocacy organization, 61.6 of teachers have been both targets and witnesses of antisemitic conduct in a professional setting. Meanwhile, nearly half suffered antisemitism perpetrated by their teachers unions, purportedly their advocates and representatives in collective bargaining.
School districts, obligated to comply with civil rights laws which proscribe discrimination, fail at prevention, according to the data. Of the 65 percent of respondents who said they are required to take anti-bias trainings, only 10 percent said those trainings address antisemitism.
“This first of its kind empirical study sought to understand antisemitism experienced by Jewish educators in K-12 education. Over 60 percent of respondents reporting that they personally experienced or witnessed antisemitism in their profession is an astounding number,” StandWithUs data and analytics director Dr. Alexandra Fishman said in a statement. “StandWithUs is deeply committed to rigorous research that serves both academic and lay audiences.”
Civil rights groups have argued that pushing anti-Zionism in the classroom can have a profound impact on students, who in many cases perpetrate antisemitic incidents. On Thursday, for example, local media reported that two 15-year-olds were arrested on suspicion of having graffitied 60 swastikas all over a playground in Brooklyn, New York.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.