Red Cross Message Forms
Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2018 7:11 pm
During WW2, civilian and Internee communication between the warring powers was restricted to Red Cross Message Forms - Form 61.
These were apparently distributed by the International Red Cross in Geneva, but apparently any country could prepare their own version of the Form, and many did so, usually with their own country name at the top. Attached below is one such form used from Costa Rica. (This image borrowed from eBay)
There seem to be an "infinite" variety of these, both for different countries and for various printings across the 1939 - 1945 period from an single country.
Is there any published catalog or listing of which countries were known to print and distribute their own forms? Is there any studies of the varieties of these forms for a country, e.g., Switzerland, Germany, the United States? I found a small monograph by the Club Marcophile, bulletin No 17, on these, but nothing else.
Finally, has anyone ever seen a variety of this form prepared by MEXICO. As my interest is the internee mail from Mexico to the ICRC, I am trying to verify that MExico had a version of this form. If anyone has an example, please post it or contact me direct with a scan.
Thanks
Mike
These were apparently distributed by the International Red Cross in Geneva, but apparently any country could prepare their own version of the Form, and many did so, usually with their own country name at the top. Attached below is one such form used from Costa Rica. (This image borrowed from eBay)
There seem to be an "infinite" variety of these, both for different countries and for various printings across the 1939 - 1945 period from an single country.
Is there any published catalog or listing of which countries were known to print and distribute their own forms? Is there any studies of the varieties of these forms for a country, e.g., Switzerland, Germany, the United States? I found a small monograph by the Club Marcophile, bulletin No 17, on these, but nothing else.
Finally, has anyone ever seen a variety of this form prepared by MEXICO. As my interest is the internee mail from Mexico to the ICRC, I am trying to verify that MExico had a version of this form. If anyone has an example, please post it or contact me direct with a scan.
Thanks
Mike