wardeadDick Eastman reported about the amazing Geneva WWI Red Cross Archive this morning - and I just had to check it out for myself. It seems that these records have been kept in file drawers in the dusty basement of the Red Cross Museum in Geneva, Switzerland for the last 90 years. As the years went by, the records seem to have been forgotten - and it’s said that no one so much as ever asks to see them. That’s all about to change. British Historian Peter Barton ran across the records just a short time ago while attempting to identify long-buried war dead. He gave BBC correspondent Robert Hall an interview in which he explained a bit about the collection. Now the world knows of their existence.

The collection is made up of cards, as well as battlefield reports that were initially compiled by the German Army. These records most likely had a British counterpart that now seems to have been lost. But the original German documents remain in the Red Cross Archives. About 20 Million World War I casualties are dealt with in the collection - many detailing the dead found on the battlefield, complete with the soldier’s name, number, rank, unit, and exactly where the person was found and buried. If the person was wounded, and captured, that information is also found in the Archive. It seems that records of soldiers from all the allied countries are to be found in the collection. I heard Barton mention New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, and Ireland has he was rustling through cards in one of the cabinets.

The Red Cross now plans to preserve and then digitize the collection, making the cards accessible to researchers worldwide. No time frame has been announced, but we will all be waiting…

The following links are to two separate multimedia files. The first is video, and the second, audio. They are different, with some overlap in the content. However, you need to check out both of them to get the story…

In the Red Cross War Dead Archive (Video)

Hope For WWI Identifications (Audio)