Otherwise, as far as armistice day is concerned, it is known, but not to a large scale. I remember when I flew back from London once on a Swiss plane and I still had my poppy on my coat. The hostess in the plane asked me as I was leaving, what the poppy meant.
Switzerland might be a neutral country, but they do still have a respect for the war and are more or less prepared. We still have conscription, my youngest son served his 10 years in the Swiss army in the tank division. The young able men in Switzerland have to do a certain amount of service, generally three weeks a year.
During the years of the last war my father-in-law and his brothers were all serving somewhere on the Swiss borders to stop an invasion. Schaffhausen on the Swiss border was bombed by the Americans, leading to many casualties, but the town being on the border to Germany, it was classified as an "accident".
Anyhow armed with my camera I went on the search for something patriotic in the local town of Solothurn. I knew we had a commemorative memorial somewhere in a park and I found it. Actually the statue is a bit of a joke in our town amongst some - looks a bit weird with a naked soldier only wearing his helmet and holding a sword. It commemorates the first world war and those that took part in Solothurn. It was a sunny day and the shadows of the leaves from the trees made a nice decoration.
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