Red Cross document "disproving Holocaust" is leading Internet Dissidents astray
Peter Myers, September 22, 2009; update January 13, 2014.
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A scan of a Red Cross Report allegedly disproving the Nazi Holocaust is doing the rounds of the Internet and leading Dissidents astray.
The original scan is from the Hal Turner show, 4 June 2007 (see item 2).
Hal Turner is a nasty type. He denigrates blacks - he's a modern-day Confederate.
The US "Patriot" movement is committing suicide by allowing infiltration by Confederates. The combination of Confederate-advocacy and Holocaust Denial makes a potent brew; but it jeopardises any genuine resistance to the Elite, because most people find the Confederacy obnoxious.
Claims that a Red Cross Report dealing with World War II disproves the Nazi Holocaust go back to Richard Harwood's book "Did Six Million Really Die?" (featured at Ernst Zundel's website).
Deborah Lipstadt showed that John Harwood mis-represented the Red Cross 1948 Report.
You don't have to take my word for it - because I've now uploaded scans of that 1948 Report.
It's not that I want to elevate Lipstadt. She's a Zionist, and allied to Alan Dershowitz, who got Norman Finkelstein sacked from his job.
But there's no point disseminating falsehoods which are easily checked by looking up the 1948 Report at libraries. Why tie your fortunes to a sinking stone? Why give Lipstadt easy points to score?
That's not the way to support the Palestinians or to counter the Jewish Lobby.
(1) "Red cross records released, holocaust total 271 thousand (not
6 million)"
(2) The original - from the Hal Turner show, 4 June 2007
(3) Hal Turner's Red Cross document not what he represents
(4) Richard Harwood: THE JEWS AND THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS: A FACTUAL APPRAISAL
BY THE RED CROSS
(5) Red Cross Report 1948 - John Harwood corrected by Deborah Lipstadt
(6) Scans and Text of the Red Cross Report 1948 - for checking Harwood
& Lipstadt
(1) "Red cross records released, holocaust total 271 thousand (not 6 million)"
From: Iskandar Masih <iskandar38@hotmail.com> Date: 22.09.2009 07:46 PM From: ammama@bigpond.com Subject: Fw: Red cross records released, holocaust total 271 thousand (not 6 million) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:53:44 +1000 From nadir martello <martello.nadirangela9@gmail.com> From: Lifeforce To: AB Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 9:27 AM Subject: Fw: Red cross records released, holocaust total 271 thousand (not 6 million)
http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/130513
== it's also at the following (and many other) websites: http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php?p=2935736
(2) The original - from the Hal Turner show, 4 June 2007
The original, it seems, was at http://www.halturnershow.com/RedCrossRecordsProveHolocaustWasFraud.html
It's no longer there, but is archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20070607135103/http://www.halturnershow.com/RedCrossRecordsProveHolocaustWasFraud.html
4 June 2007 -- 14:43 HRS EDT
OFFICIAL RECORDS FROM INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS PROVE "HOLOCAUST" WAS A FRAUD!
RECENTLY RELEASED RECORDS, SEALED FOR YEARS, SHOW "CONCENTRATION CAMP" DEATH TOTALS OF ONLY 271,301 SIX MILLION JEWS DID NOT DIE; THE WHOLE CLAIM WAS A COMPLETE FABRICATION
For years, Jews have told people around the world that six million of them were systematically murdered in German "Concentration Camps" during World War 2. Anyone disputing this claim has been viciously smeared as a hateful anti-Semite. Countries around the world have even jailed people for disputing the claim that 6 Million were killed.
Here now, for all the world to see, is a scanned image of an Official International Red Cross document proving the so-called "Holocaust" never happened. Jews around the world intentionally lied for the purpose of gaining emotional and business advantages for themselves. They committed willful, criminal FRAUD upon millions around the world!
"The Holocaust" is the greatest lie ever told. Millions of dollars have been paid out to "holocaust survivors" and their descendants for something that DID NOT HAPPEN. THis is intentional, criminal fraud on a scale so massive as to almost incomprehensible.
Below is the scanned image of the Official Death Total report from the International Red Cross. ...
(3) Hal Turner's Red Cross document not what he represents
From: jocelyn braddell <jocelynbraddell@googlemail.com> Date: 22.09.2009 09:18 AM
I think that this evening we have pretty much established that this posting is a neo-Nazi fake.
It was posted in April 2009 on this blog: http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php?p=2935736 with together with the other document I sent you.
The second document from the special registry office even has warning on it that it is not a figure of the number of people who died there, and that has an official stamp of this office. The documents would indicate to me that they are a total number of the number of former inmates who have died since this time, and have nothing to do with the holocaust figures. This can be observed because of the increase from 1977 to 1983 between the two documents.
As in keeping with these National Front history revisionists these neo-Nazis they fake up any old document to use in their propaganda. A good old Goebbels tradition! This is a dangerous activity in German as it is punished with a prison sentence. This is obviously the work of Canadian neo Nazis, as it was a Canadian who posted to the site above, and it is a fact that Zündel was imprisoned for publishing the book which is quoted in the posting and email.
(4) Richard Harwood: THE JEWS AND THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS: A FACTUAL APPRAISAL BY THE RED CROSS
This is from Richard Harwood's book "Did Six Million Really Die?"
9. THE JEWS AND THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS: A FACTUAL APPRAISAL BY THE RED CROSS
http://www.ihr.org/books/harwood/dsmrd07.html
OR http://web.archive.org/web/20001017232924/http://www.zundelsite.org/english/harwood/Didsix07.html
Look for the word "visit"; it is highlighted below. The only occurrences refer to the camp at Theresienstadt (also highlighted).
This was a Show Camp, staged to impress visitors.
Theresienstadt the "Show-Ghetto": http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/showcamp.html
In the same way, important visitors to the Soviet Union were also taken to show places.
Did Six Million Really Die? The Truth At Last
by Richard Harwood
Historical Review Press, Brighton, england
{p. 24} 9. THE JEWS AND THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS: A FACTUAL APPRAISAL BY THE RED CROSS
There is one survey of the Jewish question in Europe during World War Two and the conditions of Germany's concentration camps which is almost unique in its honesty and objectivity, the three-volume Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its Activities during the Second World War, Geneva, 1948. This comprehensive account from an entirely neutral source incorporated and expanded the findings of two previous works: Documents sur I'activité du CICR en faveur des civils detenus 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
{p. 25} or racial motives because their presence was considered a danger to the State or the occupation forces" (Vol. III, 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).
The Report admits that the Germans were at first reluctant to permit supervision by the Red Cross of people detained on grounds relating to security, but by the latter part of 1942, the ICRC obtained important concessions from Germany. They were permitted to distribute food parcels to major concentration camps in Germany from August 1942, and "from February 1943 onwards this concession was extended to all other camps and prisons" (Vol. III, p. 78). The ICRC soon established contact with camp commandants and launched a food relief programme which continued to function until the last months of 1945, letters of thanks for which came pouring in from Jewish internees.
RED CROSS RECIPIENTS WERE JEWS
The Report states that "As many as 9,000 parcels were packed daily. >From the autumn of 1943 until May 1945, about 1,112,000 parcels with a total weight of 4,500 tons were sent off to the concentration camps" (Vol. III, p. 80). In addition to food, these contained clothing and pharmaceutical supplies. "Parcels were sent to Dachau, Buchenwald, Sangerhausen, Sachsenhausen, Oranienburg, Flossenburg, Landsberg-am-Lech, Flöha, Ravensbrück, Hamburg-Neuengamme, Mauthausen, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, to camps near Vienna and in Central and Southern Germany. The principal recipients were Belgians, Dutch, French, Greeks, Italians, Norwegians, Poles and stateless Jews" (Vol. III, p. 83). In the course of the war, "The Committee was in a position to transfer and distribute in the form of relief supplies over twenty million Swiss francs collected by Jewish welfare organisations throughout the world, in particular by the American Joint Distribution Committee of New York" (Vol. I, p. 644). This latter organisation was permitted by the German Government to maintain offices in Berlin until the American entry into the war. The ICRC complained that obstruction of their vast relief operation for Jewish internees came not from the Germans but from the tight Allied blockade of Europe. Most of their purchases of relief food were made in Rumania, Hungary and Slovakia.
The ICRC had special praise for the liberal conditions which prevailed at Theresienstadt up to the time of their last visits there in April 1945. This camp, "where there were about 40,000 Jews deported from various countries was a relatively privileged ghetto" (Vol. III, p. 75). According to the Report, "'The Committee's delegates were able to visit the camp at Theresienstadt (Terezin) which was used exclusively for Jews and was governed by special conditions. From information gathered by the Committee, this camp had been started as an experiment by certain leaders of the Reich ... These men wished to give the Jews the means of setting up a communal life in a town under their own administration and possessing almost complete autonomy. . . two delegates were able to visit the camp on April 6th, 1945. They confirmed the favourable impression gained on the first visit" (Vol. I, p . 642). The ICRC also had praise for the regime of Ion Antonescu of Fascist Rumania where the Committee was able to extend special relief to 183,000 Rumanian Jews until the time of the Soviet occupation. The aid then ceased, and the ICRC complained bitterly that it never succeeded "in sending anything whatsoever to Russia" (Vol. II, p. 62). The same situation applied to many of the German camps after their "liberation" by the Russians. The ICRC received a voluminous flow of mail from Auschwitz until the period of the Soviet occupation, when many of the internees were evacuated westward. But the efforts of the Red Cross to send relief to internees remaining at Auschwitz under Soviet control were futile. However, food parcels continued to be sent to former Auschwitz inmates transferred west to such camps as Buchenwald and Oranienburg.
NO MENTION OF 'GAS CHAMBERS'
One of the most important aspects of the Red Cross Report is that it clarifies the true cause of those deaths that undoubtedly occurred in the camps toward the end of the war. Says the Report: "In the chaotic condition of Germany after the invasion during the final months of the war, the camps received no food supplies at all and starvation claimed an increasing number of victims. Itself alarmed by this situation, the German Government at last informed the ICRC on February 1st, 1945 ... In March 1945, discussions between the President of the ICRC and General of the S.S. Kaltenbrunner gave even more decisive results. Relief could henceforth be distributed by the ICRC, and one delegate was authorised to stay in each camp ..." (Vol. III, p. 83). Clearly, the German authorities were at pains to relieve the dire situation as far as they were able. The Red Cross are quite explicit in stating that food supplies ceased at this time due to the Allied bombing of German transportation, and in the interests of interned Jews they had protested on March 15th, 1944 against "the barbarous aerial warfare of the Allies" (Inter Arma Caritas, p. 78). By October 2nd, 1944, the ICRC warned the German Foreign Office of the impending collapse of the German transportation system, declaring that starvation conditions for people throughout Germany were becoming inevitable.
In dealing with this comprehensive, three-volume Report, it is important to stress that the delegates of the International Red Cross found no evidence whatever at the camps in Axis- occupied Europe of a deliberate policy to exterminate the Jews. In all its 1,600 pages the Report does not even mention such a thing as a gas chamber. It admits that Jews, like many other wartime nationalities, suffered rigours and privations, but its complete silence on the subject of planned extermination is ample refutation of the Six Million legend. Like the Vatican representatives with whom they worked, the Red Cross found itself unable to indulge in the irresponsible charges of genocide which had become the order of the day. So far as the genuine mortality rate is concerned, the Report points out that most of the Jewish doctors from the camps were being used to combat typhus on the eastern front, so that they were unavailable when the typhus epidemics of 1945 broke out in the camps (Vol. I, p. 204 ff)- Incidentally, it is frequently claimed that mass executions were carried out in gas chambers cunningly disguised as shower facilities. Again the Report makes nonsense of this allegation. "Not only the washing places, but installations for baths, showers and laundry were inspected by the delegates. They had often to take action to have fixtures made less primitive, and to get them repaired or enlarged" (Vol.III, p. 594).
NOT ALL WERE INTERNED
Volume III of the Red Cross Report, Chapter 3 (I. Jewish Civilian Population) deals with the "aid given to the Jewish section of the free population," and this chapter makes it quite plain that by no means all of the European Jews were placed in internment camps, but remained, subject to certain restrictions, as part of the free civilian population. This conflicts directly with the "thoroughness" of the supposed "extermination programme", and with the claim in the forged Höss memoirs that Eichmann was obsessed with seizing "every single Jew he could lay his hands on." In Slovakia, for examle, where Eichmann's assistant Dieter Wisliceny was in charge, the Report states that "A large proportion of the Jewish minority had permission to stay in the country, and at certain periods Slovakia was looked upon as a comparative haven of refuge for Jews, especially for those coming from Poland. Those who remained in Slovakia seem to have been in comparative safety until the end of August 1944, when a rising against the German forces took place. While it is true that the law of May 15th, 1942 had brought about the internment of several thousand Jews, these people were held in camps where the conditions of food
{p. 26} and lodging were tolerable, and where the internees were allowed to do paid work on terms almost equal to those of the free labour market" (Vol. I, p. 646).
Not only did large numbers of the three million or so European Jews avoid internment altogether, but the emigration of Jews continued throughout the war, generally by way of Hungary, Rumania and Turkey. Ironically, post-war Jewish emigration from German-occupied territories was also facilitated by the Reich, as in the case of the Polish Jews who had escaped to France before its occupation. "The Jews from Poland who, whilst in France, had obtained entrance permits to the United States were held to be American citizens by the German occupying authorities, who further agreed to recognize the validity of about three thousand passports issued to Jews by the consulates of South American countries" (Vol.I, p. 645). As future U.S. citizens, these Jews were held at the Vittel camp in southern France for American aliens.
The emigration of European Jews from Hungary in particular proceeded
during the war unhindered by the German authorities. "Until March
1944," says the. Red Cross Report, "Jews who had the privilege
of visas for Palestine were free to leave Hungary" (Vol. I, p. 648).
Even after the replacement of the Horthy Government in 1944 (following
its attempted armistice with the Soviet Union) with a govenment more dependent
on German authority, the emigration of Jews continued. The Committee secured
the pledges of both Britain and the United States "to give support
by every means to the emigration of Jews from Hungary," and from the
U.S. Govermnent the ICRC received a message stating that "The Government
of the United States ... now specifically repeats its assurance that arrangements
will be made by it for the care of all Jews who in the present circumstances
are allowed to leave" (Vol. I, p . 649).
{endquote}
(5) Red Cross Report 1948 - John Harwood corrected by Deborah Lipstadt
Lipstadt, Deborah E.
Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory.
New York: The Free Press (A division of Macmillan, Inc.), 1993.
{p. 115} Harwood contended that the report made 'nonsense' of the allegation that there were 'gas chambers cunningly disguised as shower facilities.' He substantiated this assertion by quoting a passage from the report that depicted how ICRC officials inspected baths and showers in the camps. When they found problems they acted swiftly 'to have fixtures made less primitive and to have them repared or enlarged.' 53 This, Harwood argued, demonstrated conclusively that showers functioned as showers, and not as killing apparatus. The problem with Harwood's choice of this citation, which he quoted cor-
{p. 116} rectly, is that the passage had nothing to do with German
concentration camps: It referred to Allied camps for civilian internees
in Egypt. 54
{endquote}
Endnote 53 reads: Harwood, p.25
Endnote 54 reads: Report of the ICRC, vol. 1, p. 594. Harwood incorrectly
cited this passage as coming from vol. 3.
Lipstadt on Harwood's claim that the ICRC was allowed to visit all Concentration Camps and Prisons:
{p. 116} Harwood repeatedly asserted that from August 1942 the ICRC
was allowed to visit and distribute food parcels to major concentration
camps in Germany, and that from February 1943 this privilege was extended
to all other camps and prisons.55 Harwood claimed that this information
was to be found on page 78 of the report's third volume. The page did refer
to 'major concentration camps' in Germany but indicated that they included
only Dachau and Oranienburg. The concession that was extended in 1943 included
all other camps and prisons in Germany.56 This meant that numerous camps
outside Germany were not included. Moreover, the Red Cross acknowledged
that it was limited to giving parcels only to deported aliens for whom
it had addresses, and that many inmates, among them the vast majority of
Jews, were not allowed to receive food parcels at all.
{endquote}
Endnote 55 reads: Harwood, p. 25
Endnote 56 reads: Report of the ICRC, vol. 3, p. 77.
Lipstadt on Harwood's claim that the ICRC Report denied the existence of Gas Chambers or Extermination:
{p. 114} According to him it demonstrated that the International Red
Cross had found no evidence 'whatever' in camps in Axis-occupied Europe
of a 'deliberate policy to exterminate the Jews.'47 Harwood contended that
in all its sixteen hundred pages the report failed to make any mention
of 'such a thing as a gas chamber.' Though the ICRC admitted that Jews
had suffered rigors and privations, as had many other wartime nationalities,
'its complete silence on the subject of planned extermination is ample
refutation of the Six Million legend.'48
{endquote}
Endnote 47 reads: Harwood, "Did Six Million Really Die?",
p. 24. For analysis of his use of the ICRC report, see Arthur Suzman and
Denis Diamond, "Six Million Did Die: The Truth Shall Prevail"
(Johannesburg, 1977), pp. 10-13.
Endnote 48 reads: Harwood, "Did Six Million Really Die?", p.
25
{p. 115} Harwood could make this claim only by ignoring key sections
of the ICRC report. The Red Cross was absolutely specific about the Jews'
fate. It made reference to the Nazi attempt to annihilate them, observing
that under Nazi rule Jews had been transformed into 'outcasts condemned
by rigid racial legislation to suffer tyranny, persecution and _systematic
extermination.' 49 ...Most important, the ICRC specifically delineated
how systematic annihilation was carried out: 'They were penned into concentration
camps and ghettos, recruited for forced labour, subjected to grave brutalities
and sent to _death camps_ without anyone being allowed to intervene in
those matters.' 50 These were not the ICRC's only references to death camps
or systematic annihilation.
{endquote}
Endnote 49 reads: "The Report of the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) on its Activities during the Second World War"
(Geneva, 1948), vol. 1, p. 641 (italics added). The report is replete
with numerous quotes that demonstrate that Harwood totally misconstrued
its findings. For additional examples see Suzman and Diamond, "Six
Million Did Die," p. 12
Endnote 50 reads: Report of the ICRC, vol. 1, p. 641.
(6) Scans and Text of the Red Cross Report 1948 - for checking Harwood & Lipstadt
Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its activities during the Second World War (Geneva 1948) (three volumes)
Vol 1, p. 594: RedX-WW2-1948-V1p.594.jpg
Vol 1, p. 641: RedX-WW2-1948-V1p.641.jpg
Vol 1, p. 642: RedX-WW2-1948-V1p.642.jpg
Vol 1, p. 643: RedX-WW2-1948-V1p.643.jpg
Vol 3, p. 77: RedX-WW2-1948-V3p.77.jpg
Vol 3, p. 78: RedX-WW2-1948-V3p.78.jpg
{vol 1, p. 594} thanks to military discipline. This field of investigation show the great advantage of having medical delegates, and the ICRC always tried to keep a large proportion of such men amongst the personnel of its delegations.
In the first place, the delegates had to satisfy themselves that water, the chief factor in hygiene, was available in sufficient quantities. In dry districts, they recommended the internees not to wa.ste it, and gave advice for planning its use in a rational manner. Thus, in Saudi Arabia, sweet water was completely lacking, and the German and Italian internees learned how to obtain it by the evaporation and condensation of sea water. At Fayed (Egypt), water was available only for two or three hours a day, at a rate of 50 litres for each person for all requirements of the camp, which meant that it was impossible to have showers.
Not only the washing places, but installations for baths, showers and laundry were inspected by the delegates. They had often to take action to have the fixtures made less primitive, and to get them repaired or enlarged. They supplied quantities of toilet articles (linen, soap, shaving soap, razors, blades, tooth brushes. tooth powder, etc.). At Mansurah (Egypt) German, Italian, and Greek women internees were living in such deplorable hygenic conditions that, on his first visit in 1942, the delegate gave the camp commandant a sum of 20 Egyptian pounds to meet immediate needs (purchase of insect powder, disinfectants, linen, etc.). Many camps left much to be desired in respect of latrines: here too, the delegates insisted upon the enlarging or improvement of the fittings, and investigated conditions of cleanliness and the use of disinfectants. Elsewhere, the ventilation was inadequate, and the cubic air space insufficient, because of the cramped premises. In certain districts, the delegate had to start a campaign against malaria, by providing mosquito nets and quinine, and having the ground drained in order to get rid of the stagnant water produced by floods (for instance in India after the monsoon, and in Egypt after the rise of the Nile).
Particular attention was given by the delegates to medical care, and they had in this respect to deal with a number of widely varying questions: appointment of a doctor where there was none (fortunately a very rare occurrence); ...
{vol 1, p. 641} Vl. Special Categories of Civilians
(A) JEWS
Under National Socialism, the Jews had become in truth outcasts, condemned by rigid racial legislation to suffer tyranny, persecution and systematic extermination. No kind of protection shielded them; being neither POW nor civilian internees, they formed a separate category, without the benefit of any Convention. The supervision which the ICRC was empowered to exercise in favour of prisoners and internees did not apply to them. In most cases, they were, in fact, nationals of the State which held them in its power and which, secure in its supreme authority, allowed no intervention in their behalf. These unfortunate citizens shared the same fate as political deportees, were deprived of civil rights, were given less favoured treatment than enemy nationals, who at least had the benefit of a statute They were penned into concentration camps and ghettos, recruited for forced labour, subjected to grave brutalities and sent to death camps, without anyone being allowed to intervene in those matters which Germany and her allies considered to be exclusively within the bounds of their home policy.
It should be recalled, however, that in Italy the measures taken against the Jews were incomparably less harsh, and that in the countries under the direct influence of Germany, their situation was usually less tragic than in Germany itself.
The Committee could not dissociate themselves from these victims, on whose behalf it received the most insistent appeals, but for whom the means of action seemed especialiy limited, since in the absence of any basis in law, its activities depended
{vol 1, p. 642} to a very great extent upon the good will of the belligerent States.
The Committee had in fact, through the intermediary of the German Red Cross, asked for information concerning civilian deportees "without distinction of race or religion", which was plainly refused in the following terms: "The responsible authorities decline to give any information concerning non-Aryan deportees." Thus, enquiries as a matter of principle concerning the Jews led to no result, and continual protests would have been resented by the authorities concerned and might have been detrimental both to the Jews themselves and to the whole field of the Committee's activities. In consequence, the Committee, while avoiding useless protest, did its utmost to help the Jews by practical means, and its delegates abroad were instructed on these lines. This policy was proved by the results obtained.
Germany. - Even when the German Wehrmacht was winning, the Committee's activities in behalf of the Jews met with almost insuperable difficulties. Towards the end of 1943, however, the German authorities allowed the Committee to send relief parcels to detainees in concentration camps, many of them Jews, whose names and addresses might be known to it. The Committee was able to collect a few dozen names, and by these slender means the system of individual and then collective relief for political detainees was started, an account of which is given elsewhere in this Report. Each receipt returned bore several names, and these were added to the list of addresses: thus the receipts often gave the first news of missing persons. By the end of the war, the Committee's card index for political detainees (Jewish and non-Jewish) contained over 105,000 names.
During the last year of the War, the Committee's delegates were able to visit the camp of Theresienstadt (Terezin), which was exclusively used for Jews, and was governed by special conditions. From information gathered by the Committee, this camp had been started as an experiment by certain leaders of the Reich, who were apparently less hostile to the Jews than those responsible for the racial policy of the German
{vol 1, p. 643} Government. These men wished to give to Jews the means of setting up a communal life in a town under their own administration and possessing almost complete autonomy. On several occasions, the Committee's delegates were granted authority to visit Theresienstadt, but owing to difficulties raised by the local authorities, the first visit only took place in June 1944. The Jewish elder in charge informed the delegate, in the presence of a representative of the German authorities, that thirty-five thousand Jews resided in the town and that living conditions were bearable. In view of the doubt expressed by the heads of various Jewish organizations as to the accuracy of this statement, the Committee requested the German Government to allow its delegates to make a second visit. After laborious negotiations, much delayed on the German side, two delegates were able to visit the camp on April 6, 1945. They confirmed the favourable impression gained on the first visit, but ascertained that the camp strength now amounted only to 20,000 internees, including 1,100 Hungarians, 1,1050 Slovaks, 800 Dutch, 290 Danes, 8,000 Germans, 8,000 Czechs and 760 stateless persons. They were therefore anxious to know if Theresienstadt was being used as a transit camp and asked when the last departures for the East had taken place. The head of the Security Police of the Protectorate stated that the last transfers to Auschwitz had occurred six months previously, and had comprised 10,000 Jews, to be employed on camp administration and enlargement. This high official assured the delegates that no Jews would be deported from Theresienstadt in future.
Whereas other camps exclusively reserved for Jews were not open to inspections for humanitarian purposes until the end, the Committee's activities were at least effective in several concentration camps containing a minority proportion of Jews. During the final months, the Committee, in urgent circumstances, took on a task of the greatest importance by visiting and giving aid to these internees, providing food, preventing last-minute evacuations as well as summary executions, and even taking charge during the critical hours, sometimes days, which passed between the retreat of the German forces and the arrival of the Allies from the West or the East.
{vol 3, p. 77} issue of articles of uniform to Greek detainees, on condition that all military badges were removed.
Conditions in the concentration camps and prisons were appreciably better in Greece than in Germany. All detained civilians, except prisoners under common law, were allowed to receive parcels from home. In the spring of 1943, the Management Committee for Relief in Greece granted double daily rations to all civilian detainees held in seven concentration camps and 37 prisons in Athens and the provinces. During the summer of 1943, Swedish vessels brought 40,000 standard parcels from overseas, and the delegation of the ICRC, with the help of the Greek Red Cross, set up distribution centres in Athens and Salonika.
The delegates pressed the German and Italian authorities to improve conditions in the camps they had visited. They were never allowed to enter the camp at Haidari, near Athens, which had the worst reputation, and were only admitted to the camp at Goudhi shortly before the release of detained and deported civilians in October 1944. The sub-delegation at Salonika managed to make regular distributions of foodstuffs in the camps of Pavlo Mela and Vassiliades from 1944 onwards. In May 1944, a Greek medical officer wrote: "Your parcels are meeting a dire need and becoming a vital source of strength to the exhausted civilian detainees."
Germany. - As early as January 1941, the ICRC applied to the German Red Cross for permission to send food to detained and deported civilians in the camp at Oranienburg, but this was refused. Earlier a similar request made on May 20, 1940, concerning the camps at Drancy, Compiegne and in North Africa, had already been turned down by the German Foreign Office. In the summer of 1942, the ICRC was informed by this Ministry that parcels could not be sent to German citizens in concentration camps. A little later, however, in August, a fresh request was treated with more sympathy, and the delegate in Berlin was told that detained aliens, not only at Oranienburg but at Dachau also, could receive small food parcels from their relatives, on condition that the contents could be quickly
{vol 3, p. 78} consumed. Family parcels were thus at last authorized for detained and deported civilians of enemy nationality, and were forwarded through the ICRC.
After further representations in October 1942, in behalf of detained civilians in Germany and Alsace, family parcels of foodstuffs and clothing were allowed for persons detained in Haguenau Prison; an exception was made in the case of those who had been arrested on the grounds of political activities, or for imperilling the security of the State or of the authoritics in occupation. From February 1943 onwards, this concession was extended to all other camps and prisons in Germany.
The ICRC declined, however, to limit its action merely to that of an intermediary between the detainees and their relatives. It claimed the right to send, itself, consignments of foodstuffs, clothing and medicaments, and to supervise their distribution in the camps. The Committee 'moreover insisted on ascertaining the situation within these camps and the number of occupants, by nationality. Its efforts were not entirely fruitless. In March 1943, the German Foreign Ofce informed the ICRC delegation in Berlin that the Committee and the National Red Cross Societies would henceforth be allowed to forward individual parcels to detained and deported aliens whose names and addresses were known to them. This privilege was, however, withheld from those accused of offences against the German State or the German forces. There was no limit to the number of parcels, but the amount of foodstuffs sent to any one detainee could not exceed his personal needs; any surplus would be distributed amongst fellow-detainees who received no parcels. The ICRC delegates were not allowed access to the concentration camps, and the German Red Cross and camp commandants were forbidden to communicate lists of occupants, or even camp strengths.
The concession granted by the German authorities was therefore very slight, and indeed more apparent than real, since on the one hand, only individual parcels were permitted, whilst on the other, the authorities made it impossible for the senders to obtain the necessary data for consignments of this kind. Nevertheless, the ICRC was not deterred ...
{end of quotes}
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