ferrière – served in high positions as pioneers of gender equality in an organisation dominated by men.red cross ambulance from 1917by the end of the war, the agency had transferred about 20 million letters and messages, 1.9 million parcels, and about 18 million swiss francs in monetary donations to pows of all affected countries. furthermore, due to the intervention of the agency, about 200,000 prisoners were exchanged between the warring parties, released from captivity and returned to their home country. the organizational card index of the agency accumulated about 7 million records from 1914 to 1923. the card index led to the identification of about 2 million pows and the ability to contact their families. the complete index is on loan today from the icrc to the international red cross and red crescent museum in geneva. the right to access the index is still strictly restricted to the icrc. during the entire war, the icrc monitored warring parties' compliance with the geneva conventions of the 1907 revision and forwarded complaints about violations to the respective country. when chemical weapons were used in this war for the first time in history, the icrc mounted a vigorous protest against their use. even without having a mandate from the geneva conventions, the icrc tried to ameliorate the suffering of civil populations. in territories that were officially designated as "occupied territories", the icrc could assist the civilian population on the basis of the hague convention's "laws and customs of war on land" of 1907. this convention was also the legal basis for the icrc's work for prisoners of war. in addition to the work of the international prisoner-of-war agency as described above, this included inspection visits to pow camps. a total of 524 camps throughout europe were visited by 41 delegates from the icrc through the end of the war. the mv red cross in new york harbour ca 1915 red cross nurses serving bread and coffee to american doughboys of the 16th infantry, 1st division, upon their arrival in paris, july 4, 1917. between 1916 and 1918, the icrc published a number of postcards with scenes from the pow camps. the pictures showed the prisoners in day-to-day activities such as the distribution of letters from home. the intention of the icrc was to provide the families of the prisoners with some hope and solace and to alleviate their uncertainties about the fate of their loved ones. after the end of the war, between 1920 and 1922, the icrc organized the return of about 500,000 prisoners to their home countries. in 1920, the task of repatriation was handed over to the newly founded league of nations, which appointed the norwegian diplomat and scientist fridtjof nansen as its "high commissioner for repatriation of the war prisoners". his legal mandate was later extended to support and care for war refugees and displaced persons when his office became that of the league of nations "high commissioner for refugees". nansen, who invented the nansen passport for stateless refugees and was awarded the nobel peace prize in 1922, appointed two delegates from the icrc as his deputies. a year before the end of the war, the icrc received the 1917 nobel peace prize for its outstanding wartime work. it was the only nobel peace prize awarded in the period from 1914 to 1918. in 1923, the international committee of the red cross adopted a change in its policy regarding the selection of new members. until then, only citizens from the city of geneva could serve in the committee. this limitation was expanded to include all swiss citizens. as a direct consequence of world war i, a treaty was adopted in 1925 which outlawed the use of suffocating or poisonous gases and biological agents as weapons. four years later, the original convention was revised and the second geneva convention "relative to the amelioration of the condition of wounded, sick and shipwrecked members of armed forces at sea" was established. the events of world war i and the respective activities of the icrc significantly increased the reputation and authority of the committee among the international community and led to an extension of its competencies. as early as in 1934, a draft proposal for an additional convention for the protection of the civil population in occupied territories during an armed conflict was adopted by the international red cross conference. unfortunately, most governments had little interest in implementing this convention, and it was thus prevented from entering into force before the beginning of world war ii. world war ii war 1939–1945. geneva, central prisoners of war agency, electoral building / palace of the general council the red cross' response to the holocaust has been the subject of significant controversy and criticism. as early as may 1944, the icrc was criticized for its indifference to jewish suffering and death—criticism that intensified after the end of the war, when the full extent of the holocaust became undeniable. one defense to these allegations is that the red cross was trying to preserve its reputation as a neutral and impartial organization by not interfering with what was viewed as a german internal matter. the red cross also considered its primary focus to be prisoners of war whose countries had signed the geneva convention. photo taken by rossel at theresienstadt. most of the children were murdered at auschwitz in the fall of 1944. the geneva conventions in their 1929 revision formed the legal basis of the work of the icrc during world war ii. the activities of the committee were similar to those during world war i: visiting and monitoring pow camps, organizing relief assistance for civilian populations, and administering the exchange of messages regarding prisoners and missing persons. by the end of the war, 179 delegates had conducted 12,750 visits to pow camps in 41 countries. the central information agency on prisoners-of-war (agence centrale des prisonniers de guerre) had a staff of 3,000, the card index tracking prisoners contained 45 million cards, and 120 million messages were exchanged by the agency. one major obstacle was that the nazi-controlled german red cross refused to cooperate with the geneva statutes including blatant violations such as the deportation of jews from germany and the mass murders conducted in the nazi concentration camps. moreover, two other main parties to the conflict, the soviet union and japan, were not party to the 1929 geneva conventions and were not legally required to follow the rules of the conventions. during the war, the icrc was unable to obtain an agreement with nazi germany about the treatment of detainees in concentration camps, and it eventually abandoned applying pressure in order to avoid disrupting its work with pows. the icrc was also unable to obtain a response to reliable information about the extermination camps and the mass killing of european jews, roma, et al. after november 1943, the icrc achieved permission to send parcels to concentration camp detainees with known names and locations. because the notices of receipt for these parcels were often signed by other inmates, the icrc managed to register the identities of about 105,000 detainees in the concentration camps and delivered about 1.1 million parcels, primarily to the camps dachau, buchenwald, ravensbrück, and sachsenhausen. marcel junod, delegate of the icrc, visiting pows in germany maurice rossel was sent to berlin as a delegate of the international red cross; he visited theresienstadt in 1944. the choice of the inexperienced rossel for this mission has been interpreted as indicative of his organization's indifference to the "jewish problem", while his report has been described as "emblematic of the failure of the icrc" to advocate for jews during the holocaust. rossel's report was noted for its uncritical acceptance of nazi propaganda. he erroneously stated that jews were not deported from theresienstadt. claude lanzmann recorded his experiences in 1979, producing a documentary entitled a visitor from the living. telegram by icrc delegate fritz bilfinger from hiroshima three weeks after the atomic bombing on 12 march 1945, icrc president jacob burckhardt received a message from ss general ernst kaltenbrunner allowing icrc delegates to visit the concentration camps. this agreement was bound by the condition that these delegates would have to stay in the camps until the end of the war. ten delegates, among them louis haefliger (mauthausen-gusen), paul dunant (theresienstadt) and victor maurer (dachau), accepted the assignment and visited the camps. louis haefliger prevented the forceful eviction or blasting of mauthausen-gusen by alerting american troops. friedrich born (1903–1963), an icrc delegate in budapest who saved the lives of about 11,000 to 15,000 jewish people in hungary. marcel junod (1904–1961), a physician from geneva was one of the first foreigners to visit hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped. in 1944, the icrc received its second nobel peace prize. as in world war i, it received the only peace prize awarded during the main period of war, 1939 to 1945. at the end of the war, the icrc worked with national red cross societies to organize relief assistance to those countries most severely affected. in 1948, the committee published a report reviewing its war-era activities from 1 september 1939 to 30 june 1947. the icrc opened its archives from world war ii in 1996. after world war ii budapest 1945. repatriation of 2000 italian prisoners of war. on 12 august 1949, further revisions to the existing two geneva conventions were adopted. an additional convention "for the amelioration of the condition of wounded, sick and shipwrecked members of armed forces at sea", now called the second geneva convention, was brought under the geneva convention umbrella as a successor to the 1907 hague convention x. the 1929 geneva convention "relative to the treatment of prisoners of war" may have been the second geneva convention from a historical point of view (because it was actually formulated in geneva), but after 1949 it came to be called the third convention because it came later chronologically than the hague convention. reacting to the experience of world war ii, the fourth geneva convention, a new convention "relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war", was established. also, the additional protocols of 8 june 1977 were intended to make the conventions apply to internal conflicts such as civil wars. today, the four conventions and their added protocols contain more than 600 articles, a remarkable expansion when compared to the mere 10 articles in the first 1864 convention. the icrc headquarters in geneva in celebration of its centennial in 1963, the icrc, together with the league of red cross societies, received its third nobel peace prize. since 1993, non-swiss individuals have been allowed to serve as committee delegates abroad, a task which was previously restricted to swiss citizens. indeed, since then, the share of staff without swiss citizenship has increased to about 35%. on 16 october 1990, the un general assembly decided to grant the icrc observer status for its assembly sessions and sub-committee meetings, the first observer status given to a private organization. the resolution was jointly proposed by 138 member states and introduced by the italian ambassador, vieri traxler, in memory of the organization's origins in the battle of solferino. an agreement with the swiss government signed on 19 march 1993, affirmed the already long-standing policy of full independence of the committee from any possible interference by switzerland. the agreement protects the full sanctity of all icrc property in switzerland including its headquarters and archive, grants members and staff legal immunity, exempts the icrc from all taxes and fees, guarantees the protected and duty-free transfer of goods, services, and money, provides the icrc with secure communication privileges at the same level as foreign embassies, and simplifies committee travel in and out of switzerland. at the end of the cold war, the icrc's work actually became more dangerous. in the 1990s, more delegates died than at any point in its history, especially when working in local and internal armed conflicts. these incidents often demonstrated a lack of respect for the rules of the geneva conventions and their protection symbols. among the slain delegates were: frédéric maurice. he died on 19 may 1992 at the age of 39, one day after a red cross transport he was escorting was attacked in the bosnian city of sarajevo. fernanda calado (spain), ingeborg foss (norway), nancy