Red Cross Representatives Who Aided Jews and Other Refugees in the Holocaust
Richard Allen, American Red Cross, Marseilles, 1940
Richard Allen, of the American Red Cross, stationed in Marseilles, France, helped many Jews escape to Spain and Portugal. Allen helped Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee, and other relief agencies, in their efforts to help Jews escape. Allen also coordinated with Czech diplomat Vladimir Vochoc to obtain precious Czechoslovakian visas used to escape.
Jean de Bavier, Swiss International Red Cross, Budapest
[Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 234-236.]
Count Folke Bernadotte, Swedish Red Cross, Germany, 1945
Count Folke Bernadotte was head of the Swedish Red Cross in Germany in 1945. He was cousin to King Gustav V of Sweden. In the Spring of 1945, Bernadotte negotiated with SS commander Heinrich Himmler for the release of thousands of people held in Nazi concentration camps. These included over 400 Danish Jews imprisoned in Theresienstadt. Later, he arranged for the release of thousands of women from the Ravensbrück and Bergen Belsen concentration camps. He arranged for busses, converted to ambulances, known as the “white busses,” to take them from the camps. They were eventually transported safely to Sweden. Bernadotte wrote about his wartime activities in a book entitled, The Curtain Falls. After the war, he was appointed to the position of High Commissioner for the UN in Palestine. He was killed while serving in this position.
[Bernadotte, Folke, Count. The Fall of the Curtain: Last Days of the Third Reich. (London: Cassell, 1945).]
Hans Bon, International Committee of the Red Cross Representative in Northern Italy, 1944
Hans Bon was the International Committee of the Red Cross Representative in Northern Italy. Bon negotiated secretly with SS General Karl Wolff to suspend the deportations of Jews in Italy.
[Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Vol. 4, (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 1233. Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 225-228]
Friedrich Born,* Chief Delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross of Switzerland in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45
Friedrich Born came to Budapest, Hungary, in May 1944. During the period from May 1944 to January 1945, Born issued thousands of Red Cross letters of protection to Jews of Budapest. He is credited with retrieving thousands of Jews from deportation camps and death marches in and around Budapest. He provided an additional 4,000 Jews with employment papers, preventing their deportation. He put over 60 Jewish institutions under Red Cross protection and housed over 7,000 Jewish children and orphans. He worked closely with the other neutral diplomatic legations, and set up dozens of Red Cross protected houses. He is credited with rescuing between 11,000 and 15,000 Jews in Budapest. Friedrich Born was declared Righteous Among the Nations by Israel in 1987.
[Ben-Tov, Arieh. Facing the Holocaust in Budapest: The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Jews in Hungary, 1943-1945. (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1988). Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 236-243, 248-250.]
Edouard Chapuisat, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Representative in Southeastern Europe, 1943-?
Edouard Chapuisat was the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Representative in Southeastern Europe in 1943. In the spring of 1943, Chaupuisat led a mission in southeastern Europe to meet with heads of state, church leaders, Red Cross representatives in Croatia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. The purpose of this mission was to aid Balkan Jews in emigrating to Palestine. The Red Cross representatives in these countries noted that the Jews were persecuted by national and local leaders in those countries.
[Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 202-205, 215-218.]
Jean Costinescu, President of Romanian Red Cross
Jean Costinescu was the President of the Romanian Red Cross. Costinescu worked with International Red Cross representatives Charles Kolb and Vladimir de Steiger in Romania. Costinescu and the Romanian Red Cross worked on various rescue proposals to transport Jews from Romania to Ankara and Palestine.
[Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 210-211.]
Dr. Alec Cramer, International Committee for the Red Cross Delegate to Southern France
In April 1940, Dr. Alec Cramer, the ICRC representative in Southern France, asked ICRC headquarters in Geneva for permission for French authorities to inspect civilian camps in the Haute Savoir region of Southern France. Nazi officials refused on the grounds that it did not recognize the mandate of the ICRC to do so.
[Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 146-150, 153.]
Countess Dobrazensky, Hungarian Red Cross
Countess Dobrazensky was a delegate for the Hungarian Red Cross. She tried to intervene on behalf of Hungarian Jews deported to Galicia.
[Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 233-234.]
Georges Dunand, International Red Cross, stationed in Slovakia
Georges Dunand was the International Red Cross representative stationed in Slovakia in 1944-1945. He was sent to Slovakia in October 1944 to help the remaining Jewish survivors. Many of the Jewish survivors were in hiding in Bratislava. There, he was helped by two Swiss consular officials, Max Grässli, the Consul General, and Hans Keller, Vice Consul. Consul General Grässli and his wife hid Jews in their home. When the Grässli’s left, Dunand moved into their apartment and continued to hide Jews there. Dunand also worked with Zionist youth leader Jurag Revesz. In addition, Dunand distributed money to Jewish refugee organizations. Dunand was one of the few Red Cross representatives to publish his memoirs. It was called Ne perdez pas leur trace! [Don’t lose track of them], (Geneva, 1950).
[Dunand, Georges. Ne perdez pas leur trace. Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 184, 187-197, 250. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 241, 370, 1232. Rothkirchen, Livia. “Vatican Policy and the ‘Jewish Problem’ in ‘Independent’ Slovakia (1939-1945).” Yad Vashem Studies, 6 (1967), pp. 51. Reitlinger, Gerald. The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945. (New York: The Beechhurst Press, 1953), pp. 394-395, 405, 445. Levin, Nora. The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry, 1933-1945. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1968), pp. 499, 545-546, 705. AG, G 59/2, letter from Dunand of 18 December 1944.]
Suzanne Ferrière, Delegate for the International Committee for the Red Cross
Suzanne Ferrière was a delegate for the International Committee for the Red Cross throughout Europe during the war. She was also vice chair of the International Emigrant’s Aid Agency, which was part of the ICRC.
Ferrière traveled throughout Europe making inspections and writing detailed reports for the Red Cross regarding the conditions of Jews in Nazi-occupied territories.
Ferrière took an active interest in changing the rules and conventions regarding the policy of the Red Cross in aiding Jews. Ferrière challenged the assumption that Jews could not be helped because they were political refugees and not civilian internees. She was in favor of liberalizing the rules. As such, she presented demarches in various locations throughout Europe in order to protect Jewish detainees under Nazi control.
[Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 35, 60-61, 114.]
Jean-Edouard Friedrich,* International Red Cross in Berlin
Jean-Edouard Friedrich (1912-1999) was a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Berlin. The authority of this delegation, which was established in 1940, extended over all the territories of the Third Reich, including the General Government, as well as the occupied territories, notably the Netherlands, Belgium and France. He helped a number of Jews enter Switzerland. He obtained papers for a young couple and accompanied them as far as the Swiss border, a story recounted by Lotte Strauss (1997). In Stuttgart, where he was posted, he escorted a young woman who was to be smuggled into Switzerland. They were spotted by the German police, whereupon Jean-Edouard Friedrich drew their attention and was caught, which allowed the refugees to escape and reach safety. Friedrich was awarded Righteous Among the Nations status in 1999.
Dr. Gyorgy Gergely, Red Cross Director, Budapest, Hungary, 1939-1945
Dr. Gyorgy Gergely was active in saving Jews from Nazi and Arrow Cross persecutions in Budapest, 1944-45. He was one of the main assistants to Friedrich Born and Hans Weyermann. Gergely helped maintain the Red Cross protected houses, supplied food and medical aid to Jewish refugees, distributed protective papers, and maintained a vigilance in guarding the Red Cross buildings.
[Kramer, T. D. From Emancipation to Catastrophe: The Rise and Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry. (New York: University Press of America), pp. 244-286.]
El Conde de la Granja, President of the Spanish Red Cross in Madrid, 1943?
El Conde de la Granja was President of the Spanish Red Cross in Madrid. The Spanish Red Cross was under government control. It gave permission for Jewish relief agencies to send parcels to Jewish refugees. Normally, these parcels could not be sent to Jewish refugees because they were not considered officially as prisoners of war. In addition, Granja allowed these relief packages to be sent without shipping charges.
[Kranzler, David. Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah, 1987), pp. 249-251.]
Sandor (Alexander) Kasza-Kasser,* Secretary General of the Swedish Red Cross in Hungary, 1944-45
In April 1944, Kasser was appointed by Valdemar Langlet to be the Secretary General of the newly formed Swedish Red Cross in Budapest. As a volunteer, Kasser was given the responsibility to organize for Langlet the administration of the Swedish Red Cross in Hungary. Kasser designed the Swedish Red Cross protective papers. Initially, about 400 of these protective papers were issued to Jews in Budapest. He provided Jewish refugees with jobs in the Red Cross and he rented hospitals which were used to hide Jews. Kasser worked extensively with Raoul Wallenberg on numerous rescue missions to save Jews from Arrow Cross roundups and from death marches. He received the Righteous Among the Nations award form the State of Israel in July 1997. His wife, Elizabeth Kasser, was a Jewish volunteer for the Swedish legation in Budapest. She served primarily as an interpreter for Raoul Wallenberg.
Karl “Charles” Kolb, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), stationed in Romania, 1943-1945
Karl Kolb was the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) representative stationed in Romania in 1943-1945. He was sent to Bucharest in November 1943 by the Red Cross. He made numerous inspections of Jewish conditions in Transnistria and brought relief and assistance to Jewish survivors of actions there. In the spring of 1944, he attempted to organize and evacuation and rescue of the surviving Jews to Palestine. This evacuation escape route was planned to be through the Black Sea to Turkey. Kolb was helped in the planning by the Romanian Red Cross, Jewish relief organizations, the Swiss minister in Romania René de Weck, and the American War Refugee board. The efforts of Kolb and others to rescue Jews were thwarted and were unsuccessful.
[See Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 110-115, 203-206, 213-215.]
Dr. Valdemar Langlet* and Nina Langlet,* Swedish Red Cross Delegate in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45
On June 11, 1944, Carl Danielsson, Swedish Minister in Budapest, requested the Hungarian government allow the Swedish Red Cross to join the Hungarian Red Cross in feeding and housing thousands of orphaned Jewish children. Dr. Langlet launched a humanitarian campaign immediately, working with the Hungarian Red Cross. They also set up a children’s home in Budapest. Langlet and his wife, Nina, issued and distributed Swedish protective passes to Hungarian Jews, which prevented them from being deported or murdered by the Arrow Cross or Nazis. They worked with many Jewish volunteers. Valdemar and Nina Langlet were declared Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel in 1965.
Sarolta Lukács, Deputy Chairman of the Hungarian Red Cross, Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45
Sarolta Lukács, the Deputy Chairman of the Hungarian Red Cross in Budapest, 1944-45, worked closely with Dr. Valdemar and Nina Langlet of the Swedish Red Cross. [See Langlet, Valdemar. Verk och dagar i Budapest (Work and Days in Budapest). (Stockholm: Wahlstrom & Widstrand, 1946).]
Roland Marti, International Red Cross, stationed in Berlin, Germany.
Roland Marti was the International Red Cross representative stationed in Berlin, Germany. He was active throughout the war in trying to help Jewish refugees and internees in concentration camps. In September 1942, Marti petitioned the German government to treat Jews as “civilian internees,” who could then be helped by the Red Cross under the rules of the Geneva Convention.
[Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 7, 26-27, 34-38, 40-43, 52, 58, 60, 65-70, 73, 96-97, 102, 145, 148, 151-152, 159, 161-164, 251-260. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 1230-1231.]
Dr. Morsen, International Committee of the Red Cross Delegate to the Swiss Legation in Paris, 1941
Dr. Morsen was the International Committee of the Red Cross delegate to the Swiss Legation in Paris in 1941.
Dr. Morsen and Dr. Roland Marti, who was the Berlin delegate of the ICRC, went on an extensive inspection trip to determine the conditions in French concentration camps Beaune-la-Rolande and Pithiviers. They were appalled by the conditions in the camps. They were able to provide aid to Jewish prisoners in these camps and worked to facilitate emigration for refugees out of France.
Asta Nilsson, Representative of the Swedish Red Cross, Budapest, 1944-45
Asta Nilsson was a relative of King Gustav of Sweden. Nilsson volunteered to go to Budapest, Hungary, in 1944 and was particularly active in saving and protecting Jewish children. When the Arrow Cross raided some of the children’s protected institutions, they arrested Nilsson and took her to the Jewish ghetto. She was later released with the intervention of Raoul Wallenberg.
Robert Schirmer, International Red Cross, Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45
Robert Schirmer was a member of the International Committee for the Red Cross. He was sent to Budapest, Hungary, in July 1944. He was sent to deliver a message protesting the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Hungarian head of state Horthy. Schirmer was assigned to be the assistant to Friedrich Born. After his arrival, he was given permission by Hungarian government officials to visit Jews who were arrested. He later went to visit Hungarian concentration camps to ascertain that Jews were being properly treated. Born and Schirmer brought aid and supplies and distributed food and medicine to Jews in protected homes. Schirmer also sought to protect thousands of children awaiting departure from Budapest. Born and Schirmer handed out hundreds of Red Cross letters of protection to Jews claiming any connection to Switzerland or the Red Cross delegation. By late 1944, 15,000 people were in possession of Red Cross protective papers.
[Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 115, 176, 192, 239, 241-242, 249, 255, 260-261.]
Gilbert Simond, Representative of the International Red Cross, Ankara, Turkey, 1943-1945?
Gilbert Simond was the representative of the International Red Cross in Ankara, Turkey. He worked to help Jewish refugees escape from eastern Europe to Turkey. The British provisionally agreed to allow Jews already in Turkey to enter Palestine. Simond worked with the Jewish Agency for Palestine (Yishuv) to arrange for immigration visas. He worked with the representative of the War Refugee Board, Ira Hirschmann, the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, and with US Ambassador to Turkey Laurence Steinhardt.
[Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 110-112, 115, 210-211, 213-214, 243.]
Vladimir de Steiger, Delegate to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Transnistria, 1943-1944
Vladimir de Steiger was the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegate in charge of protecting Transnisterian Jews in Romania. He encouraged the Romanian Red Cross to organize transportation to Istanbul to secure safe conduct papers and get ships and other craft to escape the Nazis. This was outside of the stated mission of the ICRC. Steiger worked with ICRC representative Karl Kolb and Swiss Minister in Romania René de Weck. This mission ultimately failed.
[Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust, pp. 101, 106, 109-110, 213, 215. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).]
Dr. Lutz Thudichum, International Committee of the Red Cross, Vienna, Austria, 1944-45
Dr. Lutz Thudichum was the representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Vienna, 1944-45. Thudichum was sent to Vienna at the end of 1944 with funds to buy food, clothing and supplies for the beleaguered Jews in Vienna. The fact that many Jews survived in Vienna has been credited to the work by Dr. Thudichum.
[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 449.]
Hans Weyermann, Swiss Chargé of the International Red Cross in Budapest, 1944-45
In December 1944, Hans Weyermann, Swiss Chargé of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), arrived in Budapest and was active in the rescue work along with other neutral diplomats. He was successful in keeping Jewish children from being placed in the Pest ghetto. He was the assistant to Friedrich Born. Weyermann worked closely with Jewish community leaders and set up a number of special Red Cross sections. Born and Weyermann worked to protect and organize 150 clinics, hospitals, homes and other institutions in the winter of 1944-45. The ICRC helped distribute thousands of Red Cross protective papers to Jews in Budapest. Weyermann stayed in Hungary after Born’s departure from Budapest and continued to provide aid to Jewish refugees.
[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 854, 981, 1063, 1149. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948), pp. 381, 386-387, 391. Ben-Tov, Arieh. Facing the Holocaust in Budapest: The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Jews in Hungary, 1943-1945. (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1988), pp. 335, 339-344, 377-378. Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 107. Kramer, T. D. From Emancipation to Catastrophe: The Rise and Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry. (New York: University Press of America), pp. 249-250. Lévai, Jenö, translated by Frank Vajda. Raoul Wallenberg: His Remarkable Life, Heroic Battles and the Secret of his Mysterious Disappearance. (Melbourne, 1988, originally published in Hungarian in 1948). Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 242, 249, 250.]
*Recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Jerusalem, Israel
Updated November 4, 2017