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website www2 Podcast.com. Hello and welcome.

In this episode we're looking at the role of the Red Cross throughout the Second World War and

immediately after.

I'm joined by Gerald Gerold Stein Aker.

Gerald is Associate Professor of History and Hyman Rosenberg Professor of Judaic Studies at the University

of Nebraska Lincoln.

His new book is Humanitarians at War, The Red Cross in the Shadow of the Holocaust.

Thanks for joining me. I think if we're talking about the Red Cross the starting point must be to understand why it came about and what it was set up to do because that very much affects how it operated during World War II.

So the beginnings in the 1850s, 60s in Europe as a project by private citizens basically to help wounded soldiers in the field

and make their life and their sufferings so to speak better.

That's the beginning, very humble beginning of the recross.

And it was a Swiss citizen, Orodino, who had this idea

because he witnessed the battle in Northern Italy and then he

founded this private institution that eventually turned into the international

...