Switzerland

The euskal etxea of Switzerland was a house with no premises, spread across Zurich, Geneva and Bern, when euskalkultura.eus portrayed it in April 2005. It had “a little over fifty members”, aged from 23 to 50, and it brought them together every month in Zurich and in Geneva.²

Its big festival was the Euskal Jaia in October, in the canton of Jura, with food, drink and concerts by Basque bands. In March 2005 the Basque festival in Geneva brought together nearly two thousand people, with dances, the film Vacas and an exhibition of stone lifting. After that success the association was considering asking the Basque Government for official recognition, renewing its website and recruiting members.²

Two years later, in 2007, ibasque.com described its regular activities: the monthly get-togethers for a drink in Zurich and Geneva, the Basque classes at two levels in Zurich, which had been running for at least two years, the weekend outings, the shared dinners and the celebrations of Aberri Eguna and Olentzero. Shortly before, it had organised a Basque night in Saignelégier, in the Jura, with talks, dinner and concerts by Ene Bada, Imuntzo eta Beloki and Trikizio.³

Little is left of its later trail. The euskalkultura.eus entry gives it a post office box in Zurich and records its participation in international events in Herisau.⁴ No more recent documented activity has been found, and there is no record that it was ever recognised and entered in the register of Basque centres.¹⁴