In February 1945, the head of the Swedish office of the WJC, Hilel Storch, established contact through an intermediary with SS chief Heinrich Himmler. In April, Norbert Masur of the Swedish Section of the WJC secretly met with Himmler at Harzfeld, around 70 kilometers north of Berlin. Masur had been promised safe conduct by Himmler. Through negotiations with the Nazi leader and the subsequent talks with the head of the Swedish Red Cross, Folke Bernadotte, the WJC was allowed to save 4,500 inmates from the women's concentration camp at Ravensbrück. Approximately half of these women, who had been deported to Germany from over forty countries, were Jewish.