Swiss historian Jean-François Bergier dies aged 77

The renowned Swiss historian Jean-Francois Bergier, who led an international panel studying Switzerland's role during World War II, has died aged 77. In 2001, the Bergier study concluded that Switzerland "became involved in crimes by abandoning refugees to their persecutors" even though the Swiss government knew by 1942 of the Nazis' Final solution and that rejected refugees would likely face deportation and death. "Large numbers of persons whose lives were in danger were turned away needlessly," Bergier said when presenting the report.

Switzerland provided shelter during the war to nearly 30,000 Jews, while it turned back an estimated 20,000 refugees, including many Jews, his panel found. The historical undertaking, which produced 26 volumes, confronted Switzerland with unpleasant truths about its dealing with Hitler's Germany. The study, by historians from Switzerland, the United States, Israel, Britain and Poland, was commissioned by the Swiss government after criticism by the World Jewish Congress and other Jewish groups that the Swiss banks had made it difficult for heirs of Holocaust victims to claim assets deposited by their relatives.

Bergier was born as the son of a vicar in 1931. He studied in Lausanne, Munich, Paris and Oxford and was appointed professor of economic history and social economy at Geneva University in 1963.