The Red Cross and the Missing

The exodus and the fighting of May 1940 scattered entire families: children separated from their parents in the throng, soldiers with no news of their kin, loved ones lost from sight on the roads or fallen in combat. In the summer of 1940, finding one's own becomes a major and anguishing preoccupation for tens of thousands of families.

For you, with no news of a loved one — a mobilised son, a child lost in the exodus, a relative gone missing — several paths open up. To turn to the Red Cross and the search organisations, which centralise notices and lists, while arming yourself with patience. To conduct a search by your own means (journeys, small advertisements, word of mouth), at the cost of effort and risk. Or to wait passively for news, for lack of the means to act.

In an occupied country, with disrupted communications, where information on prisoners and the dead is slow and incomplete, the uncertainty can last for weeks, for months. The search for the missing, supported by the Red Cross, becomes one of the great humanitarian tasks of the post-collapse period.