Red Cross cards and Vatican Archives WWII

Image from IWM and Wikimedia. Copyright expired.

In exciting news received via Facebook genimates, I learned yesterday that the University of Melbourne holds the Australian Red Cross cards for World War II until 1973. They’ve now been digitised and indexed and can be seen on the University of Melbourne’s Archives site. They also maintain a blog which has two posts about these records here and here (it’s a blog worth following).

“In 2016 Red Cross Australia donated its historical collection to the University of Melbourne Archives (UMA) as a ‘Gift to the Nation’. Part of this collection included the Missing, Wounded and Prisoner of War Enquiry Cards dating from World War Two to 1973. Since the transfer, UMA has been working to make all of the cards relating to World War Two available online. There are now over 58,000 cards available through UMA’s online catalogue. To find a card, just type the surname into the search box”[i]

The best link to search is in the digitised items at: http://gallery.its.unimelb.edu.au/imu/imu.php?request=search

You can search by (surname) only, (surname, initials) or (service number). All of these options have worked for me.

When the list (or single item) comes up, just click on the name (underlined) and it will give you another image, with an Acrobat icon on the left. Click on that to see the digitised card(s). I’ve found cards for Hugh Moran, about whom I’ve been writing recently as well as my dad’s cousin, Robert Kunkel, who was MIA in Korea, later presumed dead.

The file on Hugh Moran[ii] gave me additional information to what I had already found so that was useful. For example, it confirmed that he was at Campo Isarco at Capua[iii] prior to Campo 57 at Grupignano.  It also confirms that Hugh did not receive parcels sent to him – possibly because he wasn’t actually in Stalag VIIIB most of the time, but far away in the work camps (Arbeitskommando).

NOTE: You need to be aware that the copyright to the Red Cross documents is owned by the University of Melbourne and can only be published with permission.

Another discovery I’ve made is that the Vatican Secret Archives has indeed maintained records for its interactions with World War II Prisoners of War, their families, and the camps. They hold an astonishing 3 million cards in 2500 archive boxes[iv]. Sadly, and frustratingly, they are only accessible to postgraduate students or academics with a referring letter from their university[v]. Just imagine the wealth of data in there, the tragedies, the heartache and the joys.

 

[i] http://archives.unimelb.edu.au/news-and-events/red-cross-ww2-cards-now-online

[ii] Surname: MORAN. Given Name(s) or Initials: H A. Military Service Number or Last Known Location: QX7775. Missing, Wounded and Prisoner of War Enquiry Card Index Number: 3607

[iii] Cairns Post, 29 July 1941., p4. List includes HA Moran.

[iv] POPE PIUS XII AND WORLD WAR II: THE DOCUMENTED TRUTH by Gary Krupp. page 296

[v] Access and Consultation: Research in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano is free of charge and open to qualified scholars conducting scientific studies. All researchers must have a university degree (five-year course) or an equivalent university diploma. http://www.archiviosegretovaticano.va/content/archiviosegretovaticano/en/consultazione/accesso-e-consultazione.html