Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Chapter 5:
The Hungarian Jews
The International Red Cross
Because the Germans and their allies allowed the Red Cross, both the International
Committee (ICRC) and the various national societies, a not negligible liberty
to operate in Axis-controlled Europe, it developed that the ICRC was able to
report a great deal concerning the European Jews. The reports of such a neutrallysituated
organization are naturally of great importance in connection with our
problem.
We say “neutrally situated” rather than “neutral” because there is no such
thing as strict political neutrality; every organization is subject to political pressures.
It is a question of degree.
Two ICRC publications are of major interest to us. The first is Documents sur
l’activité du CICR en faveur des civils détenus dans les camps de concentration
en Allemagne (1939-1945), Geneva, 1947. This is a collection of document reprints,
the documents being correspondence between the ICRC and various governments
and Red Cross societies, and also reports of ICRC delegates to the ICRC
itself. Commentary sufficient only to interpret the documents is provided by the
Red Cross. The publication is invaluable and had been cited several times in this
book. Another 1947 publication was Inter Arma Caritas, but this was primarily a
public relations effort.
The second important publication is the three volume Report of the International
Committee of the Red Cross on its Activities During the Second World War,
Geneva, 1948. This has the form of a historical report; quotations from documents
appear only occasionally. Below is reproduced in full an excerpt from volume 1,
namely pages 641-657. I believe that some political pressures are evident in the
excerpt of the Report, but it will not be necessary for the reader to share my notions
regarding the specific manifestations of these pressures in the excerpt in order
to accept the major conclusion that I draw from the excerpt. However, some
obvious urgent questions will arise during the first reading, and all that can be said
here is that two points should be kept in mind.
First, this Report was published in 1948, at a time when the authors could not
have failed, especially in view of the politically sensitive nature of the subject
matter, to be thoroughly familiar with the Allied claims, exhaustively aired at the
war crimes trials and in the press, regarding the fate of the European Jews. We
expect no careless remarks here. Second, we are not consulting the ICRC as a
general sort of authority. That is to say, we are interested only in the reports that
fall within the ICRC area of competence. It had delegations in various European
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