How the Red Cross Failed
Americans in World War II

After decades of trying to conceal its failures during World War II, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has finally begun to open its archives and allow researchers access to documents illustrating the organization's shortcomings. We know that the Red Cross was a crucial source of information about the treatment of both civilians and POWs; however, the U.S. government's "eyes" in German-occupied territory often proved myopic. Abuses went unreported or were minimized. Whereas the U.S. government usually maintained it did not know what was happening, the Red Cross position was that it could not do anything, even about incidents of which it was aware. In what became the standard response to criticism of the ICRC behavior during the war, Roger Du Pasquier, head of the Information Department, explained:

The Red Cross did much good work, but it often failed POWs as miserably as it did the inmates of concentration camps. The organization's options were limited by the Nazis, but the idea that it therefore had no moral responsibility to speak out on behalf of the latter because it threatened the good work it was able to do for POWs is, in retrospect, obscene.

Morality aside, it is simply false to say the ICRC was "ill-informed" about the "horrifying reality of the camps." The American Red Cross files contain a collection of newspaper clippings that indicate it was well aware of events in Europe. Here are a few of the headlines of those stories:

"25,000 Jews Seized In Southern France," (New York Times, August 28, 1942);

"Jewish Children Interned by Vichy" (Chicago Sun, August 31, 1942);

"35,000 Jews Executed in Five Polish Towns," (New York Herald Tribune, March 21, 1943);

"50,000 Jews Put In Nazi Prison 'Die Like Flies,'" (Washington Times Herald, September 3, 1943);

"50,000 Jews Dying In Nazi Fortress," (New York Times, September 3, 1943);

"Nazi Slayings Near 250,000," (Baltimore Sun, September 22, 1943);

"Poles Report Nazis Slay 10,000 Daily," (Washington Post, March 22, 1944);

"1,000,000 Hungarian Jews Face Massacre, Hull Says," (Chicago Sun, July 15, 1944).

The Red Cross knew about the Nazi atrocities as early as August 1942. In February 1945, the President of the Red Cross wrote to a U.S. official: "Concerning the Jewish problem in Germany we are in close and continual contact with the German authorities." The fact that the head of the Red Cross would use the Nazi phraseology -- "the Jewish problem" -- may also be an indication of the organization's attitude that Jews were more of a problem than a people who were being annihilated.

The Red Cross also knew about crimes against POWs, but did little to publicize them. One might have thought the U.S. government would have an interest in fomenting anger toward the Germans, and would have broadcast stories of mistreatment of soldiers, but officials took the opposite tack. Virtually all the information made public about POWs emphasized their welfare. For example, a December 17, 1944, Washington Post headline was reassuring: "Nazis Play Fair in Prison Camps, Families Told." This news came from the director of POW relief of the ICRC. He told the Post the Germans "have endeavored to accord the same standards of treatment to American and British prisoners that were set up in the Geneva Convention."

The ICRC maintained that there was no inequality of treatment of Jewish prisoners, for example, though the organization did acknowledge that Jewish POWs were sometimes segregated. The ICRC visited Stalag VII-A on January 27, 1945, for example, and reported that 110 American Jewish POWs had been segregated but said they were not otherwise mistreated. The Red Cross accepted the Nazi contention that such actions were permissible under Article 9 of the Geneva Convention, which provides that belligerents shall not house prisoners of different races or nationalities together.

A representative of the International Red Cross who visited Stalag IX-B briefly mentioned that the Germans selected American POWs they thought were Jews and put them in a separate barracks. The report said "no other discrimination was made against them." In fact, perhaps as many as 120 Jews -- along with about 330 non-Jews -- were sent to a slave labor camp associated with Buchenwald. That camp, Berga, had the highest fatality rate of any camp where American POWs were held during the war (20 percent).

The American Red Cross, meanwhile, adopted the attitude that it should not do anything to upset families; therefore, its Prisoner of War Bulletin was filled with glowing reports of POW camps, letters from cheerful prisoners and photos of happy Americans. But those who returned home came back with a different account of life in a POW camp.