Marcel Junod
Encyclopedia
Marcel Junod was a Swiss doctor and one of the most accomplished field delegates in the history of the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC). After medical school and a short position as a surgeon in Mulhouse, France, he became an ICRC delegate and was deployed in Ethiopia
during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War
, in Spain during the Spanish Civil War
, and in Europe as well as in Japan during World War II. In 1947, he wrote a book with the title Warrior without Weapons.
about his experiences. After the war, he worked for the United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF) as chief representative in China, and settled back in Europe in 1950. He founded the anaesthesiology department of the Cantonal Hospital in Geneva
and became the first professor in this discipline at the University of Geneva
. In 1952, he was appointed a member of the ICRC and, after many more missions for this institution, was Vice-President from 1959 until his death in 1961.
and later in poor communities near Neuchâtel and La Chaux-de-Fonds
in Switzerland; the latter being where Junod spent most of his childhood. After the death of his father, his family returned to his mother's home of Geneva
. A legal rule of the time allowed Junod and his two younger sisters to obtain Genevan citizenship. In order to earn a living, his mother opened a boarding house, together with his aunt.
Junod completed his initial education in 1923 with a baccalaureate
diploma from Geneva's Collège Calvin
, the same school that Red Cross founder Henry Dunant
had attended. As a student, he volunteered in charity work and directed the Relief Movement for Russian Children in Geneva. Due to generous financial support from his uncle Henri-Alexandre Junod he was able to follow his aspirations and study medicine in Geneva and Strasbourg
, obtaining his MD in 1929. He opted for special training in the field of surgery and interned at hospitals in Geneva and Mulhouse
, France (1931–1935). He completed his training in Mulhouse in 1935, and began work as the head of the Mulhouse hospital's surgical clinic.
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.
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.
, 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.
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.
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.
From January 1948 until April 1949, Junod was active as a representative of the UN children's help organization, UNICEF, in China, after being invited for that position by then Unicef director Maurice Pate
. However, due to an illness that made it difficult to stand for long periods of time, he had to cut off his deployment. He also had to turn down a mission for the World Health Organization
(WHO) and was forced to give up his career as a surgeon. He decided to become a specialist in anesthesiology, which would allow him to work sitting down. The need for additional training and education led him to Paris and London, and in 1951 he returned to Geneva and opened a new practice. For the first time since his time at the hospital in Mulhouse, he began regular work once again as a doctor. In 1953, he convinced the management of the Cantonal Hospital of Geneva to open an anesthesiology department, of which he later became the director. He was also able to finally devote himself to medical research, which he presented in numerous journals and at conferences.
In 1946, the USA wanted to honour Junod with the Medal of Liberty
for his work on behalf of Allied prisoners in Japan, but a rule that Swiss citizens, while bound to military service, cannot accept foreign decorations, prevented him from receiving it. Four years later in 1950, he received the Gold Medal for Peace of Prince Carl of Sweden for his extensive humanitarian service. He was appointed a member of the ICRC on October 23, 1952 and elected vice-president in 1959. At the beginning of 1953, he relocated to Lullier
, a small, charming village near Geneva, to find respite from his double burden as a physician and member of the ICRC. He spent almost all of his holidays with friends in Barcelona whom he knew from his mission in Spain. His positions in the ICRC sent him to Budapest, Vienna, Cairo, and elsewhere. In 1957 he attended the International Red Cross Conference in New Delhi, and in 1960 he visited national Red Cross societies in the Soviet Union
, Taiwan
, Thailand
, Hong Kong
, South Korea
, Japan
, Canada
, and the United States
. In December 1960 he was appointed Professor of Anesthesiology in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Geneva
.
Marcel Junod died on June 16, 1961 in Geneva from a massive heart attack
while working as an anesthesiologist in an operation. The ICRC received more than 3,000 letters and other messages of condolence from all over the world. In the same year, he was posthumously awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure
by the government of Japan. On September 8, 1979, a monument to Junod was inaugurated in the Hiroshima Peace Park. Each year on the anniversary of his death a commemorative meeting is held in front of the monument. On September 13, 2005, 60 years after he left Hiroshima, a similar monument was inaugurated in Geneva by the town and cantonal authorities.
The last sentence of the following quote from the final chapter of his book is written on the back of the Hiroshima monument:
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. States parties to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005, have given the ICRC a mandate to protect the victims of international and...
(ICRC). After medical school and a short position as a surgeon in Mulhouse, France, he became an ICRC delegate and was deployed in Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War
Second Italo-Abyssinian War
The Second Italo–Abyssinian War was a colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire...
, in Spain during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, and in Europe as well as in Japan during World War II. In 1947, he wrote a book with the title Warrior without Weapons.
about his experiences. After the war, he worked for the United Nations Children's Fund
United Nations Children's Fund
United Nations Children's Fund was created by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946, to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II...
(UNICEF) as chief representative in China, and settled back in Europe in 1950. He founded the anaesthesiology department of the Cantonal Hospital in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
and became the first professor in this discipline at the University of Geneva
University of Geneva
The University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland.It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin, as a theological seminary and law school. It remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it...
. In 1952, he was appointed a member of the ICRC and, after many more missions for this institution, was Vice-President from 1959 until his death in 1961.
Childhood and education
Marcel Junod was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland as the fifth of seven children, to Richard Samuel Junod (1868–1919) and Jeanne Marguerite Bonnet (1866–1952). His father was a pastor for the Independent Protestant Church of Neuchâtel, first working in mining villages in BelgiumBelgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and later in poor communities near Neuchâtel and La Chaux-de-Fonds
La Chaux-de-Fonds
La Chaux-de-Fonds is a Swiss city of the district of La Chaux-de-Fonds in the canton of Neuchâtel. It is located in the Jura mountains at an altitude of 1000 m, a few kilometres from the French border. After Geneva and Lausanne, it is the third largest city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of...
in Switzerland; the latter being where Junod spent most of his childhood. After the death of his father, his family returned to his mother's home of Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
. A legal rule of the time allowed Junod and his two younger sisters to obtain Genevan citizenship. In order to earn a living, his mother opened a boarding house, together with his aunt.
Junod completed his initial education in 1923 with a baccalaureate
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
diploma from Geneva's Collège Calvin
Collège Calvin
The Collège Calvin, formerly the Collège de Genève, is the oldest public secondary school in Geneva. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin.-History:...
, the same school that Red Cross founder Henry Dunant
Henry Dunant
Jean Henri Dunant , aka Henry Dunant, was a Swiss businessman and social activist. During a business trip in 1859, he was witness to the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino in modern day Italy...
had attended. As a student, he volunteered in charity work and directed the Relief Movement for Russian Children in Geneva. Due to generous financial support from his uncle Henri-Alexandre Junod he was able to follow his aspirations and study medicine in Geneva and Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
, obtaining his MD in 1929. He opted for special training in the field of surgery and interned at hospitals in Geneva and Mulhouse
Mulhouse
Mulhouse |mill]] hamlet) is a city and commune in eastern France, close to the Swiss and German borders. With a population of 110,514 and 278,206 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 2006, it is the largest city in the Haut-Rhin département, and the second largest in the Alsace region after...
, France (1931–1935). He completed his training in Mulhouse in 1935, and began work as the head of the Mulhouse hospital's surgical clinic.
The Second Italo-Abyssinian War 1935/1936
Second Italo-Abyssinian War
The Second Italo–Abyssinian War was a colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire...
, 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
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
. 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
Italian Red Cross
The Italian Red Cross is the Italian national Red Cross society that has its origin in the Comitato dell'Associazione Italiana per il soccorso ai feriti ed ai malati in guerra that was formed in Florence in 1863, and in Milan on June 15, 1864. Other committees were formed later...
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
Dessie
Dessie is a city and a woreda in north-central Ethiopia. Located on the Addis Ababa - Asmara highway in the Debub Wollo Zone of the Amhara Region, this city has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation between 2,470 and 2,550 meters above sea level.Dessie has postal service , and telephone...
by the Italian air force, the use of mustard gas against civilian populations in the towns of Degehabur
Degehabur
Degehabur is a town in the eastern part of Ethiopia known as the Ogaden. Located in the Degehabur Zone of the Somali Region on the Jerer River, it sits at 1044 meters above sea level. The town is the administrative center of Degehabur woreda....
and Sassabaneh, and the plundering of Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...
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. . . .
The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939
In July 1936 the ICRC sought a delegate for an investigation mission to Spain, where civil warSpanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
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
Geneva Conventions
The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war...
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
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
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. . . .
The Second World War 1939-1945
After the outbreak of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, 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.
Geneva Conventions
The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war...
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
Fourth Geneva Convention
The Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, commonly referred to as the Fourth Geneva Convention and abbreviated as GCIV, is one of the four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. It was adopted in August 1949, and defines humanitarian protections for civilians...
. 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. . . .
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
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.For six months...
on Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
(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. . . .
His life after the Second World War
His deployment in Japan and other surrounding Asian countries lasted until April 1946 when he was able to return to Switzerland, having missed the birth of his son Benoit in October 1945. After he returned, he wrote the book Le Troisième Combattant, entitled in English, Warrior Without Weapons. It describes, in very personal language, his experiences during his various ICRC deployments. Other editions were published in German, in Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Japanese and Serbo-Croatian]. An Italian translation of the book appeared in 2006, nearly 60 years later. It has been reprinted several times by the International Committee of the Red Cross in English, French and Spanish. The book is sometimes called the "bedside volume of all young ICRC delegates."- Thus it is our task to form a third front above and cutting across the two belligerent fronts, a third front which is directed against neither of them, but which works for the benefit of both. The combatants of this third front are interested only in the suffering of the defenceless human being, irrespective of his nationality, his convictions or his past. They fight wherever they can against all inhumanity, against every degradation of the human personality, against all injustice directed against defenceless human beings. It is for these fighters that Dr. Junod has coined the expression 'the third combatant'.
From January 1948 until April 1949, Junod was active as a representative of the UN children's help organization, UNICEF, in China, after being invited for that position by then Unicef director Maurice Pate
Maurice Pate
Maurice Pate was an American humanitarian and businessman. With Herbert Hoover, Pate co-founded the United Nations Children's Fund in 1947 and served as its first executive director from 1947 until his death in 1965.Talking about the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld, its second Secretary-General,...
. However, due to an illness that made it difficult to stand for long periods of time, he had to cut off his deployment. He also had to turn down a mission for the World Health Organization
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...
(WHO) and was forced to give up his career as a surgeon. He decided to become a specialist in anesthesiology, which would allow him to work sitting down. The need for additional training and education led him to Paris and London, and in 1951 he returned to Geneva and opened a new practice. For the first time since his time at the hospital in Mulhouse, he began regular work once again as a doctor. In 1953, he convinced the management of the Cantonal Hospital of Geneva to open an anesthesiology department, of which he later became the director. He was also able to finally devote himself to medical research, which he presented in numerous journals and at conferences.
In 1946, the USA wanted to honour Junod with the Medal of Liberty
Medal of Liberty
The Medal of Liberty was awarded in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan to twelve outstanding individuals chosen as representative of the most distinguished naturalized citizens of the United States of America. David L...
for his work on behalf of Allied prisoners in Japan, but a rule that Swiss citizens, while bound to military service, cannot accept foreign decorations, prevented him from receiving it. Four years later in 1950, he received the Gold Medal for Peace of Prince Carl of Sweden for his extensive humanitarian service. He was appointed a member of the ICRC on October 23, 1952 and elected vice-president in 1959. At the beginning of 1953, he relocated to Lullier
Lullier
Lullier is part of the municipality of Jussy, Switzerland. It is the site of the Ecole d'Ingénieurs de Lullier, a site of the HES-SO ....
, a small, charming village near Geneva, to find respite from his double burden as a physician and member of the ICRC. He spent almost all of his holidays with friends in Barcelona whom he knew from his mission in Spain. His positions in the ICRC sent him to Budapest, Vienna, Cairo, and elsewhere. In 1957 he attended the International Red Cross Conference in New Delhi, and in 1960 he visited national Red Cross societies in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. In December 1960 he was appointed Professor of Anesthesiology in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Geneva
University of Geneva
The University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland.It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin, as a theological seminary and law school. It remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it...
.
Marcel Junod died on June 16, 1961 in Geneva from a massive heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
while working as an anesthesiologist in an operation. The ICRC received more than 3,000 letters and other messages of condolence from all over the world. In the same year, he was posthumously awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure
Order of the Sacred Treasure
The is a Japanese Order, established on January 4, 1888 by Emperor Meiji of Japan as the Order of Meiji. It is awarded in eight classes . It is generally awarded for long and/or meritorious service and considered to be the lowest of the Japanese orders of merit...
by the government of Japan. On September 8, 1979, a monument to Junod was inaugurated in the Hiroshima Peace Park. Each year on the anniversary of his death a commemorative meeting is held in front of the monument. On September 13, 2005, 60 years after he left Hiroshima, a similar monument was inaugurated in Geneva by the town and cantonal authorities.
The last sentence of the following quote from the final chapter of his book is written on the back of the Hiroshima monument:
- . . . All these pictures are not merely out of the past. They are still with us all today and they will be with us still more tomorrow. Those wounded men and those pitiful captives are not things in a nightmare; they are near us now. Their fate is in our care. Let us place no reliance on the slender hope which lawyers have aroused by devising a form of words to place a check on violence. There will never be too many volunteers to answer so many cries of pain, to answer so many half-stifled appeals from the depths of prison and prison camp.
- Those who call for help are many. It is you they are calling.
External links
- Genealogy of the Junod Families of Neuchâtel (Switzerland) - Dr Marcel Junod (1904-1961)
- History of the ICRC
- Marcel Junod (1904-1961): the Red Cross doctor who personified "the spirit of the thing"
- Telegram from Fritz Bilfinger to Marcel Junod, August 30, 1945, about the situation in Hiroshima (PDF facsimile)
- ICRC Reprints of the English, French and Spanish editions of "Warrior without Weapons"
- The Hiroshima MOST association's project of an animated film about Marcel Junod