{"id":91040,"date":"2026-01-04T11:56:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T16:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=91040"},"modified":"2026-07-15T09:34:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T14:34:59","slug":"teen-jewish-sisters-among-40-dead-in-swiss-new-years-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/teen-jewish-sisters-among-40-dead-in-swiss-new-years-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen Jewish sisters among 40 dead in Swiss New Year\u2019s fire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By CANAAN LIDOR<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-meta-str\"><span class=\"light-weight-content\">(<em>JNS.org<\/em><\/span><span class=\"light-weight-content\">) \u2013&nbsp;<\/span>Twin Italian-Jewish sisters, both in their teens, were confirmed on Sunday to be among the 40 fatalities from a fire that broke out at a hotel in Switzerland at a New Year\u2019s party just after midnight Friday.<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another Jewish teenage girl, Charlotte Niddam, who is an Israeli citizen, is still missing.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_91041\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Gunst_sisters.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-91041\" class=\"wp-image-91041 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Gunst_sisters-300x203.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"203\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Gunst_sisters-300x203.png 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Gunst_sisters-768x520.png 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Gunst_sisters.png 876w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/203;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-91041\" class=\"wp-image-91041 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Gunst_sisters-300x203.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"203\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Gunst_sisters-300x203.png 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Gunst_sisters-768x520.png 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Gunst_sisters.png 876w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-91041\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sisters Alicia, 15, and Diana Kunst, 14, were listed among the dead in the deadly Swiss fire in Crans-Montana. (Screenshot)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sisters Alicia and Diana Gunst were initially considered missing in the ski town of Crans-Montana in the Swiss Alps, but their bodies were identified along with 16 others out of the known 40 dead, a spokesperson for the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG) told JNS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sparklers on bottles being carried too close to the ceiling are the likely cause of the fire during New Year\u2019s celebrations at the bar, a preliminary investigation has found. In addition to the 40 slain, 119 others were injured in the fire. Many of the approximately 80 critically injured have also not yet been identified.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many of the dead and missing are teenagers. The Le Constellation bar, where the fire broke out, was popular with teenagers and young adults in the ski resort town of Crans-Montana, where the drinking age is 16.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Saturday, eight casualties were identified and their remains were returned to their families. All were aged between 16 and 24, Swiss authorities said. On Sunday, another 16 were identified, including the Gunst sisters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The French couple who own the bar\u2014named by the media as Jacques and Jessica Moretti\u2014are suspected of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence, the prosecutors\u2019 office for the Valais region said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Beatrice Pilloud, Valais canton lead prosecutor, said in a statement that investigators were looking into whether the acoustic foam on the venue\u2019s ceiling was \u201cthe cause of the problem,\u201d as well as \u201cwhether it complies with regulations,\u201d the&nbsp;<em>BBC&nbsp;<\/em>reported.<\/p>\n<div class=\"end-of-article-donate popup _hide_if_pressplus_user _hide_if_society_user _hide_if_premium_user\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Teen%20Jewish%20sisters%20among%2040%20dead%20in%20Swiss%20New%20Year%E2%80%99s%20fire\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":91041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[14985,14987,14986,8790,8795,8788,352],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91040"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91042,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91040\/revisions\/91042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}