An American in Germany: Fall 1940

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the journal entries of Tracy Strong Jr. that he wrote in the latter half of 1940 while serving as a representative of the International Red Cross to the German POW camps holding Allied prisoners in central Germany. Despite his many critical observations, Strong strove to maintain a neutral and even-handed attitude toward Nazi Germany, as well as pacifist convictions that condemned the war itself. In 1941-1942, he worked as a humanitarian relief worker in the Vichy internment camps in southern France. Here his prioritizing of helping victims of the war over fighting and winning it transformed him into an early Holocaust rescuer.