There is a hotel in the Jura where you can sleep with your head in Switzerland and your feet in France.
The Hôtel Arbez was built directly across the future border in 1862, after its owner realized exactly where the new boundary would run and hurriedly constructed on the line before the treaty took effect.
At first, the arrangement was useful for commerce and smuggling.
During World War II, it became something far more important. The Arbez family used the hotel’s impossible geography to help Jews, fugitives, resistance members, and Allied airmen escape from occupied France into neutral Switzerland. Max Arbez was later recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.
I love stories like this because they begin with cleverness and end with character.
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