Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its activities during the second world war pdf download

Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its activities during the second world war (September 1, 1939 – June 30, 1947), Volumes 1 – 3 (complete)

Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its activities during the second world war

This comprehensive account from an entirely neutral source incorporated and expanded the findings of two previous works:

 Documents sur l’activité du CICR en faveur des civils détenus dans les camps de concentration en Allemagne 1939-1945 (Geneva, 1946), and Inter Arma Caritas: the Work of the ICRC during the Second World War (Geneva, 1947). 

The team of authors, headed by Frédéric Siordet, explained in the opening pages of the Report that their object, in the tradition of the Red Cross, had been strict political neutrality, and herein lies its great value.

The ICRC successfully applied the 1929 Geneva military convention in order to gain access to civilian internees held in Central and Western Europe by the Germany authorities. 

By contrast, the ICRC was unable to gain any access to the Soviet Union, which had failed to ratify the Convention. 

The millions of civilian and military internees held in the USSR, whose conditions were known to be by far the worst, were completely cut off from any international contact or supervision.

The Red Cross Report is of value in that it first clarifies the legitimate circumstances under which Jews were detained in concentration camps, i.e. as enemy aliens.

 In describing the two categories of civilian internees, the Report distinguishes the second type as “Civilians deported on administrative grounds (in German, “Schutzhäftlinge”),

 who were arrested for political or racial motives because their presence was considered a danger to the State or the occupation forces” (Vol. 111, p. 73). 

These persons, it continues, “were placed on the same footing as persons arrested or imprisoned under common law for security reasons.” (P.74).