Marcel Junod

Marcel Junod with Sidney Brown in Addis Ababa (©Benoit Junod, Switzerland)

Immediately after the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, Junod received a call on October 15, 1935, from a friend in Geneva recommending him to take a position as delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Ethiopia. Encouraged by the head doctor of the clinic in Mulhouse, he accepted the offer and soon traveled to Addis Ababa with a second ICRC delegate, Sidney Brown. He would remain in Ethiopia until the end of the Abyssinian War in May 1936.

Because of his experience in law, Sidney Brown worked on the establishment of an effective national Red Cross Society in Ethiopia. Junod focused on the maintenance and coordination of Red Cross ambulances provided by the Red Cross societies of Egypt, Finland, the UK, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. While the Ethiopian Red Cross, having been founded only shortly before the outbreak of the war, accepted support from the ICRC and the League of Red Cross societies, the Italian Red Cross refused any cooperation, as Italy had not accepted the offer of services of the ICRC.

Some of the most difficult experiences for Junod during the war involved the attacks on Red Cross ambulances by the Italian military and Ethiopian armed groups. A bombing of a Swedish ambulance on December 30, 1935 killed 28 Red Cross workers and patients and wounded 50. He was also witness to a number of horrific episodes in this war characterized by the extreme gap in technological capabilities of the two sides. Among other events, he witnessed the bombardment of the city Dessie by the Italian air force, the use of mustard gas against civilian populations in the towns of Degehabur and Sassabaneh, and the plundering of Addis Ababa in the final days of the war.

. . . Men were stretched out everywhere beneath the trees. There must have been thousands of them. As I came closer, my heart in my mouth, I could see horrible suppurating burns on their feet and on their emaciated limbs. Life was already leaving bodies burned with mustard gas.

'Abiet . . . Abiet . . . .'

The monotonous chant rose towards the refuge of the Emperor. But who was to have pity? Who was to help them in their suffering? There were no doctors available and our ambulances had been destroyed. . . .

(Dr. Marcel Junod: Warrior without Weapons. ICRC, Geneva, 1982, p. 61)

Marcel Junod during the Civil War in Spain (©Benoit Junod, Switzerland)

In July 1936 the ICRC sought a delegate for an investigation mission to Spain, where civil war had just broken out. Once again Junod was selected. Contrary to the ICRC's initial plan of a three-week deployment, he ultimately stayed for over three years, and the ICRC expanded the mission, led by Junod, to nine delegates spread across the country.

The activities of the Red Cross were hindered by the problem that the Geneva Conventions had no legal application to civil conflicts. As a solution, Junod suggested the creation of a new combined commission with representatives of the ICRC and of the warring sides, but the parties could not agree. The commission would have coordinated work on the release of captured women and children, the erection of neutral international zones, and the compilation of prisoner lists.

Despite the ambiguous legal basis for the Red Cross' work in this conflict, Junod succeeded to convince the warring parties to sign and implement a number of agreements regarding prisoner exchange and other issues, thereby saving many lives. Before the fall of Barcelona he achieved the release of five thousand prisoners whose lives were endangered by fighting for the city. He also organized research and information exchange regarding prisoners and missing persons using the Red Cross card system for the first time in the context of civil conflict, and by the end of the war the ICRC had facilitated the exchange of five million cards.

. . . Someone was on the other side of the line and his nearest did not even know whether he was alive or dead.

For a long time I had realized that this uncertainty was the greatest agony of all. I had seen too many trembling hand stretched out for the sheet of paper that we had at last succeeded in getting from one side to the other: the Red Cross card.

There was not much on it: a name and address and a message which was not allowed to exceed twenty-five words. Often when it came back the censor had left only the signature on it, but at least it was proof that a loved one was still alive. And then the eyes which read the name and the signature would fill with tears of joy. . . .

(Dr. Marcel Junod: Warrior without Weapons ICRC, Geneva, 1982, p. 115)

After the outbreak of World War II, Junod was called to Geneva by a letter from the ICRC and was once again made an ICRC delegate, releasing him from his obligations as a medical officer for the Swiss Army. He started his mission on September 16, 1939 in Berlin and for a long time remained the only ICRC delegate in Germany and its soon-to-be occupied territories. Only eleven days later, on September 27, he visited a camp with Polish prisoners of war. In June 1940 he succeeded in preventing a series of threatened executions of French POWs, which had been planned as retaliation for the falsely assumed execution of German paratroopers. Once again he organized the forwarding and exchange of information relating to POWs, this time with the support of the ICRC central office for POWs in Geneva.

Marcel Junod visiting POWs in Germany (©Benoit Junod, Switzerland)

The central tasks in this war were the observation of the adherence to the Geneva Conventions in POW camps and the distribution of provisions and medical supplies to the civil populations of occupied territories. Yet the civil population effort was not part of the legally defined role of the ICRC and would not be so until the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention. To provide logistical support for these efforts, Junod worked to introduce the first use of Red Cross ships, specially marked with the neutral symbols of the ICRC, to provide needed goods and supplies. For example, a number of ships were provided by Belgium ("Caritas I", "Caritas II" and "Henri Dunant"), Turkey ("Kurtulus", "Dumlupinar"), and Sweden ("Hallaren", "Sturebog"). Sadly, on June 9, 1942, despite its neutral markings, the "Sturebog" was sunk by an Italian aircraft.

. . . For three weeks we impatiently awaited news that the Sturebog had arrived back safely in Alexandria. Geneva inquired vainly after her whereabouts in London, Rome, Berlin and Ankara. The Sturebog was lost at sea and we began to think that we should never learn anything about her fate.

. . . Then one morning on the coast of Palestine two Bedouins going along the shore found a body half buried in the sand. . . . He was the sole survivor of the Sturebog, a Portuguese sailor. Gradually he recovered and after a week he was able to tell his tale.

The day after the departure of the Sturebog from Piraeus two Italian planes flew overhead. They flew round in circles and had plenty of time to observe the huge red crosses painted on the ship's white side. Nevertheless they dropped a bomb which cut the Sturebog in half. . . .

(Dr. Marcel Junod: Warrior without Weapons ICRC, Geneva, 1982, p. 202)

Telegram sent by ICRC delegate Fritz Bilfinger on 30 August 1945 from Hiroshima to Junod

In December 1944, Junod married his wife Eugénie Georgette Perret (1915-1970). After a short break from being a delegate, during part of which he worked in the ICRC headquarters in Geneva, in June 1945 he was sent to Japan and arrived in Tokyo on August 9. His original mission involved the visit of POWs in Japanese camps and the supervision of the adherence to the Geneva Conventions in Japanese territory. His mission in Japan took place while his wife was expecting a child at home.

After the American dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945) and the subsequent Japanese surrender, Junod organized the evacuation of POW camps and the Allied rescue of the often severely injured inmates. On August 30, he received photographic evidence and a telegraph description of the conditions in Hiroshima. He quickly organized an assistance mission and on September 8 became the first foreign doctor to reach the site. He was accompanied by an American investigation task force, two Japanese doctors, and 15 tons of medical supplies. He stayed there for five days, during which he visited all of the major hospitals, administered the distribution of supplies, and personally gave medical care. The photographs from Hiroshima, which he gave to the ICRC, were some of the first pictures of the city after the explosion to reach Europe.

. . . On what remained of the station facade the hands of the clock had been stopped by the fire at 8.15.

It was perhaps the first time in the history of humanity that the birth of a new era was recorded on the face of a clock. . . . 

(Dr. Marcel Junod: Warrior without Weapons ICRC, Geneva, 1982, p. 300)