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”It’s a long way to Tipperary...”
Scarcely had I taken office as vice-president of the
Swedish Red Cross when the government requested
the supervisory board to deal with the technical
details concerning the exchange of prisoners of war
and medical personnel, planned to take place in the
middle of October, 1943. Despite Geneva Convention
stipulations directing belligerent countries to arrange
for the quickest possible return or care in a neutral
country of invalids or severely wounded priseners
of war, such exchanges had rarely occured before
1943. It is indeed true that some hundreds of invalids
had been exchanged in 1940 between Germany and
France, before the latter’s capitulation. Also,
occasional exchanges of seriously wounded British and
Italian prisoners and medical personnel had taken
place on British and Italian hospital ships, via
Smyrna and Lisbon. Finally, on another occasion
before 1943, serious efforts had been made to
organize an exchange on a larger scale between England
and Germany. A considerable number of English
prisoners of war had been sent to one of the French
channel ports. On the other side of the channel,
seriously ill or wounded Germans were waiting to
embark on English ships for repatriation. One can
imagine the happiness with which these people looked
forward to the day when they would return to their
homeland. They would finally be able to rejoin their
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