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Bulletin of the History of Medicine 75.4 (2001) 816-818


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Book Review

The Red Cross and the Holocaust

Jean-Claude Favez. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. Originally published as Une mission impossible? (1988). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. xxxi + 353 pp. $39.95 (0-521-41587-X).

A decade after its first publication, Cambridge University Press has produced an English edition of Jean-Claude Favez's book about the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). This work looks at the committee's action and inaction on behalf of the victims of the Holocaust. Why has it taken so long for the translation to appear? Rising translation costs in a fiercely competitive market increasingly appear to stall accessibility to important contributions to the field. This carries with it the danger that books are outdated when they finally appear, or are no longer relevant--but this is not the case with Favez's book. The story is as disconcerting as the evidence he presents is compelling and important for the current historical discourse on Nazi Germany. The title of the original French edition, "Une mission impossible?" indicates both the theme and the core questions of the book: To what extent did the ICRC, other international aid organizations, and Western governments know about the unfolding genocide of European Jews, and what did the ICRC leadership do to prevent what few wanted to believe was being perpetrated? This is hardly original ground for Holocaust historians, but it nonetheless proves to be illuminating once one looks at the fine details of Geneva's international diplomatic intercourse. [End Page 816]

Despite the ICRC's claim to be "international," all its members were Swiss nationals and almost all came from the Swiss bourgeoisie. Yet, they all had extensive international contacts with aid organizations and national governments. Carl J. Burckhardt (the vice-president), for example, was a personal friend of the German secretary of state, Ernst von Weizsäcker, the likely source of the disturbing news that the Nazis had decided that Germany "must be free of all Jews [Juden-frei]" (p. 293) before the end of 1942. ICRC officials discussed this information among themselves and passed on information to the Swiss authorities. They knew what was happening, but felt, as one hardened official pointed out, that they needed to maintain the principle of neutrality lying "at the heart of everything the ICRC does" (p. 2). Favez makes it plain that the history of the ICRC during World War II is inextricably linked with Swiss national identity, with Swiss foreign policy, and the defence of Swiss neutrality. More than providing a detailed institutional history, he provides valuable insight into the history and raison d'être of Switzerland during National Socialism.

Within this context Favez's book gains poignant relevance. Thanks to revelations in recent years about the tons of hidden Nazi gold in Swiss bank vaults, the Swiss nation has been brutally awakened to its country's complicity in the Holocaust. Neutrality--the attempt to remain impartial--and Swiss patriotism are the crucial ingredients in understanding the nation's dilemma. Thousand of Jews were denied entry into the country. Starting in 1938, the passports of those who were permitted to enter were stamped with a "J" to ensure that they could be traced and expelled. Swiss companies continued to do lucrative business with the Reich. Ready-to-assemble concentration camp barracks were made in Switzerland; the cars, and later the chassis for the gas vans, to exterminate the Jews in places like Chelmno were also made in Switzerland, built by the Saurer car manufacturer in Arbon, near St. Gallen. Whether the manufacturers knew or sensed the purpose for which the German authorities had ordered these goods has yet to be explored. In the case of the ICRC, however, Favez's access to major archival material offers significant evidence of how much the organization knew and, crucially, at what time.

Following visits to the concentration camps in 1935 and again in 1938, the ICRC leadership worried that...

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