Sonabend was 11 years old when he and his parents entered Switzerland in 1942 from Belgium. Two days later, his parents were arrested and deported to Nazi-occupied France.
They were then sent to Auschwitz.
His suit, first filed in 1997, focused renewed attention on the refugee policy of Switzerland, which expelled more than 30,000 Jews during the war. Most of those Jews died.
At the same time, however, Switzerland provided haven to some 25,000 Jewish refugees, who survived the war together with Switzerland’s 20,000 Jewish citizens.