Caux, Switzerland

Caux is a small village in the Canton of Vaud, Switzerland which is part of the Montreux municipality. It looks out over Lake Geneva from an altitude of 1000 meters.

Overlooked by the Rochers de Naye summit (2000 meters), the Caux area was traditionally used only by cattle farmers. Late in the 19th century, local riviera hotels owners from Montreux and Territet became aware of the touristic potential of the Caux Mount. Simples inns first, then the massive Caux Grand-Hôtel (1893), and finally, the spectacular Caux Palace Hotel (1902), masterpiece of Swiss architect Eugène Jost, gave Caux an international status, attracting the wealthiest and most famous guests: Empress Sissi of Austria-Hungary, Lord Robert Baden-Powell, Sacha Guitry, Edgar Wallace, prince Ibn Saud, future king of Saudi Arabia, John D. Rockefeller and the maharajah of Baroda, just to name a few.

World War I prematurely killed the Caux luxury hotels. In spite of the efforts of the hotel's owners, the golden years of the Belle Epoque would never return and the 1929 economic crisis and World War II brought all the hotels to bankruptcy for the last time.

During World War II, the hotels fell into disrepair and were used to house civilian refugees and interned escaped Allied prisoners of war. Finally some 1,600 Jews from the Kasztner train from Budapest found refuge there [2].

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