One of the most remarkable chapters in the wave of Swiss solidarity that followed the suppression of the 1956 Revolution was the story of the Swiss Student Union (VSS/UNES), local university students, and the aid buses they organized. Swiss university students were not content with passive sympathy; upon hearing news of the armed fighting, they founded the “Switzerland–Hungary Student Direct Aid Organization” (Studentische Direkthilfe Schweiz-Ungarn) almost immediately, in late October 1956.
Swiss students set out for Vienna in aid buses they had organized and driven themselves, then crossed the open borders all the way to Győr and Budapest. These vehicles transported metric tons of blood, essential medicines, bandages, and food to the war-torn regions of Hungary. On the return trip, the buses did not travel empty: they brought back young Hungarians from Austrian refugee camps who had fled their homeland to escape reprisals.
After the refugees arrived in Switzerland, the Swiss Student Union and students at local universities established a network to support the integration and employment of Hungarian university students. Under pressure from the association, the Swiss federal government and the cantons provided special scholarships and free university spots for the refugee students. Swiss students took on the role of personal mentors: they helped with complex administrative procedures, organized intensive language courses, and in many cases even shared their own rooms or living spaces with the Hungarian students or helped them find housing with local families.
The Student Association also acted as a liaison in the job market to ensure that Hungarians who had completed their studies or were seeking work to support themselves could secure intellectual or research positions in the Alpine country that matched their qualifications. This highly organized and dedicated student solidarity laid the foundation for the Hungarian intellectual class arriving in Switzerland to integrate into Swiss society in an exemplary manner.
Switzerland took in approximately 12,000 refugees.
