Red Cross parcel


Red Cross parcel refers to packages containing mostly food, tobacco and personal hygiene items sent by the International Association of the Red Cross to prisoners of war during the First and Second World Wars, as well as at other times. It can also refer to medical parcels and so-called "release parcels" provided during the Second World War.
The Red Cross arranged them in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War. During the Second World War these packages augmented the often-meagre and deficient diets in the prisoner-of-war camps, contributing greatly to prisoner survival and an increase in morale. Modern Red Cross food parcels provide basic food and sanitary needs for persons affected by natural disasters, wars, political upheavals or similar events.
More recent catastrophes involving delivery of Red Cross parcels include events in Georgia, Thailand and Great Britain.

First World War

The Australian Red Cross reported dispatching a total of 395,695 food parcels and 36,339 clothing parcels to Allied POWs in Germany and Turkey during the course of the First World War. Food parcels were also sent to needy civilians in Belgium and France.
British POWs during the First World War were supplied with food parcels by the British Central Prisoners of War Committee of the Joint War Organisation, the combined Red Cross and Order of St John. When the Central Powers refused to allow food to be sent to prisoners of war by the British government, the British Red Cross had stepped forward. Packages containing food and conveniences were sent fortnightly to POWs. Donations collected from the public for these parcels reached £674,908 19s 1d. A total of £5,145,458 16s 9d was spent. By the end of the war, some 9,000,000 food parcels and 800,000 clothing parcels had been despatched by various organisations to British prisoners abroad.
French POWs were required to pay for parcels sent to them through a French commission; these packages included potted chicken, various pâtés, and even bottled wine. Indigent French POWs could receive parcels with lower-quality food for free, from the "Vetement du Prisonnier" which liaised actively with the Croix-Rouge française.

New Zealand

New Zealand relatives had to buy parcels and were given a choice:
A - 4 shillings
  • 1 Alp milk chocolate
  • 1 condensed milk
  • 1 cheese
  • 1 block chocolate
  • 2 packets tobacco
  • 2 packets citrol
  • 1 tin Liebig
  • Handkerchiefs or towel or sewing kit
B - 4 shillings
  • tea
  • 1 condensed milk
  • sugar
  • 1 jam
  • biscuits
  • 1 block chocolate
  • 6 Maggi soups
  • 1 packet tobacco
  • 1 pack cigarettes
C - 6 shillings
  • 1 day shirt
  • 1 vest
  • 1 under drawers
  • 1 pair socks
  • 1 towel
  • 2 handkerchiefs
  • 1 toothbrush
  • 1 toothpowder
  • 1 washrag
  • 1 soap
D - For invalids - 6 shillings
Relatives could send a specific parcel or a package made up of A & C or B & C It is also noted that each POW was supplied with 400 cigarettes per month, provided by the Joint Council of the Order of St John and the New Zealand Red Cross Society. It was not permitted for private persons to send cigarettes or tobacco to POWs.

American

The American Red Cross commenced delivery of food parcels to American POWs in German camps in November 1917. The first parcel received by a POW included the following items:
  • One pound tin of corned beef
  • One pound tin of roast beef
  • One pound tin of salmon
  • Two pounds of hash
  • One pound of jam
  • One bar of soap
  • Four packages of tobacco
  • One overshirt
  • One undershirt
  • Two cans of pork and beans
  • One can each of tomatoes, corn and peas
  • One pair of drawers
  • Two pairs of socks
  • Three handkerchiefs
  • Two towels
  • One tube of toothpaste
  • Two pounds of hard bread
  • of evaporated milk
  • One pound of sugar
  • One-half pound of coffee
  • One toothbrush, comb, shaving brush and "housewife" kit, plus shaving soap.
Thereafter, further parcels were sent once per week. These were rotated on a four-week schedule between packages labeled "A", "B", "C" and "D". Each parcel contained meat, fish, vegetable, bread and fruit items, together with eighty cigarettes or other tobacco products. Items of clothing were also provided for American POWs through the American Red Cross. Toward the end of the war, German camp guards and other personnel would sometimes steal the contents of these packages, often leaving only bread for the helpless prisoner. In such events, American camp representatives attempted to make up the loss through stores kept for this purpose in the POW camps.
A special agreement between the YMCA and the American Red Cross resulted in the YMCA providing athletic equipment, books and games for American prisoners in German POW camps.

Second World War

Red Cross food parcels during the Second World War were mostly provided from the United Kingdom, Canada and America. An Allied POW might receive any of these packages at any one given time, regardless of his or her own nationality. This was because all such packages were sent from their country of origin to central collection points, where they were subsequently distributed to Axis POW camps by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
For POWs held by Axis forces in Europe the parcel route through Lisbon required escorted ships to bring the crates of parcels, or for British, mail bags full of parcels, to Lisbon, there being no safe conduct agreement. In Portugal, parcels would be loaded onto Red Cross marked ships with many taken through the port of Marseilles, for onward freighting by rail to Geneva, from where they would be sent to various camps by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Barcelona was also used as an Iberian transit port, with Toulon as an alternative French port. The returning ships sometimes carried allied civilians and wounded being repatriated.
The route from Iberia to the South of France was not safe. The Red Cross ship SS Padua was damaged by British bombing in Genoa in 1942 and then sunk by a mine outside Marseilles in October 1943. The SS Embla was bombed by British aircraft on 6 April 1944 causing a fire, and the same ship was attacked again on 20 April 1944, by American B-26 bombers, who this time sank the ship and killed the ICRC agent. On 6 May the "Christina" was attacked while at anchor in Sete. This latest act resulted in the ICRC suspending the route. The Operation Dragoon invasion of Southern France, preliminary bombing in July and the actual invasion in August 1944 put a stop to rail transport and then Marseilles being used by the Red Cross. The SS Vega sailed to the alternative port of Toulon with parcels in November 1944.
On 8 May 1945, it was reported that 7,000,000 parcels, weighing were at sea or in warehouses in Britain, Lisbon, Barcelona, Marseilles, Toulon, Geneva and Gothenburg. A Red Cross representative said that they were not perishable and could be used for distressed civilians and as a flexible reserve.

British food parcels

During the Second World War, the British Joint War Organisation sent standard food parcels, invalid food parcels, medical supplies, educational books and recreational materials to prisoners of war worldwide. During the conflict, over 20 million standard food parcels were sent. Typical contents of such a parcel included:
  • packet of tea
  • Tin of cocoa powder
  • Bar of milk or plain chocolate
  • Tinned pudding
  • Tin of meat roll
  • Tin of processed cheese
  • Tin of condensed milk
  • Tin of dried eggs
  • Tin of sardines or herrings
  • Tin of preserve
  • Tin of margarine
  • Tin of sugar
  • Tin of vegetables
  • Tin of biscuits
  • Bar of soap
  • Tin of 50 cigarettes or tobacco.
The Scottish Red Cross parcels were the only ones to contain rolled oats. Approximately 163,000 parcels were made up each week during the Second World War.
Sometimes, due to the shortage of parcels, two or even four prisoners would be compelled to share the contents of one Red Cross parcel.

American food parcels

The American Red Cross produced 27,000,000 parcels. Even before America entered the war in late 1941, they were supplying, through Geneva, parcels to British, Belgian, French, Polish, Yugoslav, Dutch, Greek, Norwegian, and Soviet prisoners of war. The Philadelphia centre alone was producing 100,000 parcels a month in 1942. A list of the contents of a typical Red Cross parcel received by an American airman held prisoner in Stalag Luft I near Barth, Germany on the Baltic Sea:
According to this airman, recipients of these parcels were permitted to keep only the cigarettes and chocolate bars; the remainder of the parcel was turned over to the camp cook, who combined them with the contents of other parcels and German POW rations to create daily meals for the prisoners.
Cigarettes in the parcels became the preferred medium of exchange within the camp, with each individual cigarette valued at 27 cents within Stalag Luft I. Similar practices were followed in other POW camps, as well. Cigarettes were also used to bribe German guards to provide the prisoners with outside items that would otherwise have been unavailable to them. Tins of coffee, which were hard to come by in Germany late in the war, served this same purpose in many camps. Contents of these packages were sometimes pilfered by German guards or other camp personnel, especially toward the end of the war.