Isabelle VONÈCHE CARDIA GARIAN OCTOBER — INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS HUNGARIAN OCTOBER: BETWEEN RED CROSS AND RED FLAG Isabelle VONÈCHE CARDIA HUNGARIAN OCTOBER: BETWEEN RED CROSS AND RED FLAG THE 1956 ACTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS Translated by Martha Grenzeback ISBN 2-88145-109-8 © International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva 1999 Ai miéi Nonni TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE........................................................................................ XI Acknowledgements.........................................................................XV Foreword......................................................................................XVII Introduction............................................................................. 1 Chapter l Relations between the ICRC AND THE USSR, 1918-1956 5 1. The ICRC and the USSR, 1918-1945.................................. 5 2. The Conferences of 1948 and 1949.................................. 8 3. Relations between the ICRC and the USSR during the 1950s....................................... 11 Chapter il Relations between the USSR AND HUNGARY, 1953-1956 ....................................................... 13 1. The Various Measures Taken by the USSR with Respect to Hungary................................................... 14 2. The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR.......................................................................... 18 3. The Hungarian Revolution.............................................. 19 Chapter iil The ICRC’s First Steps in Hungary (27 October-11 November 1956)...................................... 23 1. Assistance................................................................................ 23 2. Protection................................................................................ 26 3. Requests for Information about Refugees........................ 28 VIII HUNGARIAN OCTOBER Chapter iv: The Installation of the ICRC in Vienna and Budapest (November 1956-June 1957)................................................. 31 1. Organization of ICRC Action.............................................. 31 A. The Various Agreements.............................................. 31 B. The Delegations............................................................... 34 2. The Relief Operation......................................................... 35 3. Protection................................................................................ 39 A. Political Detainees......................................................... 39 B. Deportees.......................................................................... 45 C. Medical Personnel and Former Members of the Hungarian Red Cross........................................ 46 4. Reunification of Dispersed Persons.................................. 50 Chapter v: Delegates’ Temporary Missions in Hungary....................................................................... 59 1. Assistance............................................................................. 59 2. Protection................................................................................ 63 A. Political Detainees.......................................................... 63 B. Medical Personnel.......................................................... 68 C. Persons Convicted and Threatened with Execution............................................................... 68 3. Family Reunification......................................................... 70 CONCLUSION................................................................................ 73 Annex l The International Committee of the Red Cross............................................................ 77 1. The Establishment of the ICRC........................................ 77 2. The Functioning of the ICRC in the 1950s....................... 77 Annex il The International Red Cross........................... 82 Annex iil The 1949 Geneva Conventions 84 TABLE OF CONTENTS IX Annex iv: The National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies............................................ 88 Annex v: The League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies............................................ 89 Annex vl Agreement between the League of Red Cross Societies and the ICRC............................ 90 Annex vil Article 15 of the First Geneva Convention of 1949............................................ 98 Annex viil Telegrams from the ICRC to the Foreign Ministries of Moscow and Budapest.................................................................. 99 Annex ix: Agreement between the ICRC and the Hungarian Red Cross.......................................... 103 Annex X: The ICRC’S Relationship with the United Nations.........................................................109 Annex xl Organizational Chart of Vienna and Budapest Delegations..................................................... 119 Annex xil Relief Distributed by the ICRC in the World, 1949-1930................................................................ 120 Annex xiil ICRC Aid to Hungary: Situation in June 1957................................................................ 121 Annex xiv: Instructions for the Budapest Delegation Concerning Persons Detained in Hungary Following the Disturbances ... 129 Annex xv: Dossier Note Concerning the Legal Aspect of the Conflict in Hungary.......................................... 131 Annex xvl Agreement between the ICRC and Hungary on Family Reunification...................... 138 Annex xvil Mission Report by Delegate Beckh ... 151 Annex xviil Letter from Delegate Borsinger to the President of the ICRC................................................160 X HUNGARIAN OCTOBER Annex xix: Map of Relief Distribution Centres Visited by the Delegates............................................ 167 Annex xx: Chronology of the ICRC Operation in Hungary, 1956-1957............................................................ 168 Bibliography............................................................................. 170 PREFACE At the end of October 1956, the world discovered the hidden face of the Soviet empire when an entire people in the Communist bloc rose up against the single-party system and their country’s occupation by the Red Army. That country was Hungary. The Budapest revolution that broke out on 23 October revealed the impotence of the ruling Hungarian Communist party, which had to turn to Moscow for help. During the night, the Soviet divisions stationed in Hungary made their way to the capital to put doivn an insurrection of several thousand civilian combatants. Those combatants, however, enjoyed the enthusiastic support of the population, and most of the army and even the municipal police refused to fight them, if they did not actually join them. As a result, the “battle of Budapest” lasted nearly a week, followed by a temporally lull under the leadership of a new prime minister, Imre Nagy. This patriotic, enlightened Communist tried to reach a political wider- standing with the leaders of the Kremlin, but ultimately failed. On k November a second invasion by the Soviet army crushed the uprising. The revolution was over. The Soviet intervention left thousands of dead and wounded, buildings in ruins, and prisons that, over the weeks, filled up with insurgents and intellectuals accused of having taken part in the revolt. Around 10,000 of them received heavy prison sentences, and more than 300 were executed, including Prime Minister Imre Nagy and several of his colleagues, all of them Communists. Isabelle Vonèche Cardia’s remarkable work focuses on one particular aspect of these events, namely the operation earned out by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) during and after the insurrection. This operation was documented only in official ICRC activity reporis, which provided precise accounts of the work earned out by the Geneva centre and its delegates and the distribution of aid to the victims, but refrained from any analysis or political conclusions. Ms. Vonèche Cardia’s research fills that gap, revealing for the first time the political impact of the ICRC action. That action was critical for the Hungarians saved and protected by the Genevan humanitarian organization, but it was also of major imporiance for the ICRC itself, being the biggest operation the organization had undertaken since World XII HUNGARIAN OCTOBER War II - and the most perilous, since the Soviet Union had been hostile towards the ICRC since the end of the war. The ICRC was consequently forced to embark on its action in Hungary without any assurance of cooperation from the authorities of Moscow and Budapest - and, needless to say, with no knowledge of the way the Communist bloc functioned, or of the nature of the power that held sway after the appointment of Imre Nagy. Isabelle Vonèche Cardia presents a very perspicacious analysis of the difficulties arising from this unprecedented situation. The ICRC could, of course, invoke the Geneva Conventions, which had been ratified by the Soviet Union and Hungary; but it was confronted by an intractable armed conflict compounded by an equally intractable, three-sided political conflict - on one side, the Hungarian insurgents, on the other, the Soviet power, and between them Imre Nagy’s government which, in its efforts to find a solution to the crisis, ivas moving closer and closer to the national revolutionary cause. Who was who, out in the field? Who represented which population and which authority?