Culture Bridge Switzerland-Sarajevo

The “Kulturbrücke Schweiz-Sarajevo” (Cultural Bridge Switzerland – Sarajevo) was created during the war as a reaction to an appeal for support from intellectuals from Sarajevo. The group disseminated the “Appeal to the conscience of the world” from the Circle 99 in Switzerland, and organized a petition to support it. The aim of the “Kulturbrücke” was to raise the awareness in Switzerland about the war in BiH and the cultural resistance against it, and to look for concrete possibilities to support this resistance.

Simon Gerber, the head of the “Kulturbrücke”, traveled five times to Sarajevo during the war. “What do you need?”, he asked his acquaintances in the besieged city. “Don’t just bring us food, we are starving anyway,” he received as an answer. “We lack international exchange. We suffer from isolation” was the credo of the cultural workers and intellectuals.

In 1995, the group published the book “ ‘Dass wir in Bosnien zur Welt gehören’. Für ein multikulturelles Zusammenleben.” (“That we belong to the world in Bosnia. For multicultural living together”) that gathered texts from authors from BiH and Switzerland. In April 1995, Simon Gerber and translator Marija Wernle-Matic traveled again to Sarajevo to bring and present the book ; but on their way back, they were arrested at a checkpoint by soldiers of the VRS and then detained for 34 days, certainly as reprisal for their commitment. They were only released after international protests and after the Swiss government paid a ransom which Gerber and Wernle-Matic had to reimburse.