Peace March Switzerland-Germany
Your canons and machine guns do not defend me. They bother me. They suffocate me.Take them away, let me go and see these Germans. I am perfectly sure that over there I will find men, who are decent people, rather similar to us – when we and they are not beset by militaristic ravings.
Pierre Ceresole In: In Germany and India for Peace (1934)
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The clandestine journeys of Pierre Ceresole, crossing the border from Switzerland into Germany in the years 1918, 1933, 1942 and 1944 were acts of a radical pacifist which still fascinate and irritate at the same time.
On the one hand Ceresole declared that he was seeking cooperation with the national voluntary work service in Germany (1933) on the other he protested against totalitarianism ("apotheosis of the state") and Swiss governmental support of the Nazi regime (1942/44).
The commemoration of these gestures allows SCI to understand and reflect on the pacifist values of the movement in the early days. In his booklet about his 1933 trip to Germany, Ceresole extensively describes the aims of the SCI and its peace work and the attempts to persuade the Nazi authorities to allow international volunteers to take part in the state-run voluntary work service project in Germany, was an attempt to release the political tensions in Europe at that time. Furthermore the topic of crossing borders symbolizes international volunteering exchange, which is often a sticking point for voluntary projects in SCI nowadays.
The trail
From the Swiss village of Schleitheim in the region of Schaffhausen he entered the forest and crossed the border into Germany at the edge of the forest, at the border stone number 488. Following the trail he went to the German village of Grimmelshofen and from there to Fützen. In 1933 he took the train to Stuttgart. In 1918 and 1942 he was arrested by German border guards and in 1944 by the Swiss police.
Ideas
SCI Archives would like to commemorate these journeys in order to reflect on the pacifist values of SCI. Here are some ideas:
- Political Action: Promote the political aims of SCI: facilitating cross-border volunteer exchanges. SCI activists would announce that they are going to cross the border stone number 488 and hold a press conference there.
We could organize symbolic acts like making a trail with coloured stones. - Volunteer Project: Volunteers could make Ceresole peace walk trail. At different places the walkers would be informed about Ceresole and his German adventures (e.g. Robert Walser trail). Other tasks could be cleaning in the wood, helping a farmer ...
- Ceresole Interactives trail: In cooperation with tourist agencies, a guided tour with background information about the Ceresole journeys will be installed along the trail. At different places along the way, actors play out different episodes of the journey.An appeal for artists to install art objects on the Ceresole trail.
- Easter March 2010 or 2011: Invite the local pacifist organisation to carry out the next years Easter March on the trail of Ceresole.
Literature:
- En Allemagne et aux Indes pour la paix (1934) [PDF 8.4 MB]
- In Germany and India for Peace (1934) English Version
- In Deutschland und Indien für den Frieden (1934) German Version
- Begründung meines Besuchs in Deutschland (1942)
- Raison de ma visite en Allemagne (1942)
- Offener Brief an den Herrn Vorstand des Bezirksgefängnisses Waldshuts (1944)
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