‘Moral Failure’ on Holocaust
The Red Cross handed over 60,000 pages of World War II-era documents to Israel on Tuesday, and a top official acknowledged the organization’s “moral failure” in keeping silent while the Nazis killed 6 million Jews.
“Very clearly, the ICRC’s activities with regard to the Holocaust are sensed as a moral failure,” said George Willemin, director of archives for the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross. “The ICRC admits--yes--that it has kept silent with regard to the Holocaust.”
Willemin spoke at a modest ceremony at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial institute, which received the documents.
Willemin’s statement was the most explicit acknowledgment by a Red Cross official that the group could and should have done more for the Jews.
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