GENEVA – On 28 April 2015, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the World Jewish Congress (WJC) will host a commemorative event in Geneva, Switzerland on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps. The conference "Remembering the Shoah: The ICRC and the International Community's Efforts in Responding to Genocide and Protecting Civilians" will provide a forward-looking perspective on the international community's efforts to protect civilians and prevent atrocities.
Ahead of the gathering, an exhibition about the ICRC during the Holocaust, showcasing relevant material from the ICRC archives, will be opened at the Humanitarium in Geneva.
Following will be speeches by ICRC President Peter Maurer and WJC President Ronald S. Lauder, and a panel discussion moderated by WJC CEO Robert Singer and including President Maurer, the American Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt and the Canadian physician, writer, and humanitarian activist James Orbinski. The event will be attended by senior members of Geneva’s diplomatic corps and reflect on the international community’s failure to respond vigorously to the Nazi mass murder of Jews during World War II.
“We hope that this important conference will allow us to learn from the past and help ensure that humanitarian organizations such as the ICRC can fulfill their critical role in preventing genocide from ever happening again,” declared WJC President Lauder.
The conference will also reflect on how legal and political tools to respond to large-scale killings have developed since the Holocaust.
During World War II, the ICRC, headquartered in Geneva, was the principal humanitarian institution maintaining communications with both the Allied and Axis powers. While the ICRC did provide assistance and protection to allied prisoners of war held by Nazi Germany, it could not do the same for Jewish deportees as Berlin refused all humanitarian requests to help Jewish victims.
At the same time, the ICRC did not publicly denounce the deportation of Jews to concentration camps. In 1995, the then-president of the ICRC, Cornelio Sommaruga, apologized, stating: “Our failure to speak out at that time was a moral defeat.”
