National day of mourning on Friday Minute's silence provides space for communal mourning
Switzerland will stand still on Friday at 2.00 pm. A minute's silence will be observed nationwide at the same time as the memorial service in Martigny. The ritual has grown historically and is psychologically effective.
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- On Friday, January 9, 2026, the Swiss Confederation is calling for a nationwide minute's silence at 2 pm.
- The modern minute's silence originated after the First World War and was first officially held in 1919.
- It is particularly effective due to its simultaneity: many people pause at the same time.
- Researchers speak of emotional synchronization and a stabilizing effect after disasters.
- A minute's silence is a beginning of remembrance, but is no substitute for coming to terms with the past.
On Friday, January 9, 2026, the Confederation, together with the churches, is calling for a national day of mourning - and a nationwide minute's silence at 2 pm. When the official memorial service for the victims of the fire disaster begins in Crans-Montana, church bells will ring throughout Switzerland.
This allows people throughout the country to pause together and remember the 40 people killed and the many injured. The minute's silence gives the shock caused by the disaster a common moment.
The minute's silence is not a religious ritual, a political speech or a collective text. It offers a common framework for mourning without prescribing anything. Therein lies its special effect.
The idea comes from the war
It originated as an idea from civil society. Who "invented" the minute's silence cannot be clearly traced back to a single person.
The Australian journalist Edward George Honey is considered to be one of the earliest originators of the idea. Honey served briefly in the British army during the First World War. He was discharged from service at an early stage due to health problems, known at the time as war neurosis. Back in civilian life, he worked for the "Evening News" in London.
In May 1919, Honey published a letter to the editor under the pseudonym Warren Foster in which he criticized the commemoration of the Armistice. Too loud, too solemn, too little space for the dead. Instead, he suggested several minutes of silent remembrance - as a secular ritual for everyone, regardless of faith or origin. Five minutes, Honey wrote, should be enough. It was about a silent connection with the dead and a form of remembrance.
Cannon shots in Cape Town
Honey was not the first to use silence as a form of public remembrance. As early as 1918, there were daily pauses for remembrance in Cape Town, South Africa. They were initiated by Scottish-born city councillor Robert Rutherford Brydone, together with the mayor at the time, Sir Harry Hands.
Originally, the cannon shot of the Noonday Gun, which is still fired every day at 12 o'clock, served as an acoustic time signal for the port in the 19th century: ships set their chronometers to it, businesses and administrations followed it.
During the First World War, the firing of the Noonday Gun was deliberately used to initiate a public pause for remembrance. Traffic came to a standstill with the thunder of the gun, people paused, work and movement stopped for a few minutes. Only then did music or trumpet signals sound. This practice is considered to be one of the earliest coordinated pauses for silence.
Political enforcement followed shortly afterwards by James Percy Fitzpatrick, a South African author and politician. He took up the experience from Cape Town and Honey's idea and suggested to the British court that silence be limited to two minutes - a duration that was considered emotionally effective and feasible. The idea was simple: everyone should be able to mourn as he or she wished.
From empire to international ritual
The British King George V actually adopted the proposal. On November 7, 1919, the royal appeal appeared in numerous British newspapers. In it, George V asked his subjects to cease all activities for two minutes at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month. Work, traffic and noise were to cease so that thoughts could focus "in perfect silence" on the memory of the fallen.
On November 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the Armistice, public life in the British Empire did indeed come to a standstill. Contemporary reports describe stationary buses, silent factories and people who - often reluctantly - were caught up in the collective silence. One minute for the dead, one for the survivors.
The King wrote to Fitzpatrick afterwards to say that he "gratefully recalls that the idea of the two-minute silence on Armistice Day was your initiative - a proposal that was received and implemented with sincere sympathy throughout the Empire."
The pause in silence quickly became an obligatory ritual and an international model. France officially introduced the minute desilence in 1922. France thus coined the one-minute variant that later became established in many countries.
Symbolic beginning of coming to terms
The decisive factor in a minute's silence, apart from the silence itself, is its simultaneity. People pause at the same time, in different places. This joint suspension of movement, sound and action combines individual remembrance with collective perception.
Researchers speak of emotional synchronization. Shared silence can create a sense of connection without imposing thoughts or feelings. Unlike speeches or music, silence leaves room for individual images, memories and emotions. This is seen as stabilizing, especially after disasters.
At the same time, the ritual has its limits. A moment of silence is no substitute for coming to terms with responsibility, failure or structural causes. In research, the minute's silence is therefore seen as a symbolic beginning, not a conclusion.
