The road to recovery: the provision of health services to French, German and Italian children in the aftermath of the Second World War (1944–49)

ABSTRACT

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the children of Western Europe were suffering. Millions of them were ill, anaemic, tired and deficient in vitamins and proteins. Houses, hospitals, sewers and other hygiene infrastructure was destroyed by the fighting and bombing across Europe. As a result of the material conditions that prevailed after Germany’s capitulation, child relief was a real challenge for experts, members of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and state organizations alike, who tried to identify, treat and help sick children. In some countries, the task was made all the more difficult due to political and institutional instability, as was the case in France, Germany and Italy, where state structures had largely collapsed. By focusing specifically on these countries, all three of which shared an unprecedented institutional crisis despite profoundly divergent national contexts, this article examines how the various entities in charge of children and childcare – and voluntary organizations in particular – faced the challenges of the health emergency of the immediate post-war period. At the crossroads of the history of child welfare and humanitarianism, the aim of this article is to document and analyse the many roles these organizations took on – as care providers, information gatherers, parcel transmitters and so on – to help child victims of war, as well as understand the relationships they forged with other actors involved. The comparative approach will provide a stimulating opportunity to look more closely at the ways in which non-state actors participated in the post-war recovery of children’s health, and to point out common dynamics and specificities for each country.

KEYWORDS:

• Children
• Second World War
• health issues
• reconstruction
• France
• Germany
• Italy

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful suggestions. I also thank Romain Fathi and Lia Brazil for their feedback, support and availability.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. “United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund: Report by the Executive Board, Geneva UN, 10 July 1950,” UNICEF, Executive Board, E/1738/Corr.1.

2. Charnow, Maurice Pate, 29.

3. Salvatici, A History of Humanitarianism; and Paulmann, Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid.

4. Baughan, “Mrs Jellyby Nation”; and Katz and Sachsse, The Mixed Economy of Social Welfare.

5. Giomi et al., Productive Entanglements.

6. Those who study childhood and humanitarian action primarily work on food issues. Health issues have mainly been studied for adults, in particular soldiers and displaced persons. For instance: Reinisch, The Perils of Peace.

7. Especially in Germany, where the food situation remained rather good before 1945, thanks to the Nazi policy in Europe, which consisted of the plundering of all the resources of occupied countries. In that sense, the comparison between France, Italy and Germany is more relevant in the post-war period than during the war for that topic.

8. Created during the First World War, the Secours national was reactivated by Vichy. It became the Entraide française in 1944 before disappearing in 1949. Le Crom, Au Secours, Maréchal !

9. See for instance: Circular n° B. 736, related to the rehabilitation of wards of the nation, war wounded or disabled dated 17 June 1946 in Bulletin officiel du ministère des Anciens combattants et Victimes de guerre, 2^e année, 1946, 809. The three societies belonging to the Central Committee of the French Red Cross were merged into a single organization called the French Red Cross in 1940 by Marshal Pétain, with the agreement of the ICRC. To learn more about the French Red Cross: Le Crom, “La Croix-Rouge française pendant la seconde guerre mondiale.”

10. Riesenberger, Das Deutsche Rote Kreuz; and Vicke, SS und DRK.

11. Rasmussen, “Le temps long des épidémies,” 55–67.

12. About the relationships between France and UNRRA: Humbert, “The French in Exile.”

13. Farré, “Pain et paix, de l’UNRRA à CARE,” 221–46. To know more about UNRRA: Reinisch, “Internationalism in Relief,” 258–89; and Reinisch, “Auntie UNRRA,” 70–97.

14. The United States was the first contributor to the UNRRA, which was also directed by three Americans at the beginning: New York City mayors Herbert H. Lehman and Fiorello LaGuardia and Major General Lowell P. Rooks.

15. To learn more about the ICRC and the League: Forsythe, The Humanitarians; Herrmann, “Décrypter la concurrence humanitaire”; and Wylie et al., The Red Cross Movement.

16. More precisely, of Allied bombings. Knapp, Les Français sous les bombes alliées, 20.

17. This is the case, for example, in the Valtellina region (Italy), as highlighted in a CMS report. “Valtelline,” A CICR, O CMS D 220.03.

18. This is one of the points made by Thérèse Brosse in a report commissioned by Unesco. Brosse, L’enfance victime de la guerre, 82.

19. For example, 1.7 to 2 million Germans between the ages of six and 14 were evacuated during the war. Kock, “Der Führer sorgt für unsere Kinder … .”

20. “Rapport annuel sur la situation de l’enseignement primaire en 1943–1944, direction académique de la Loire Inférieure,” Archives nationales, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine (AN), F/17/14300-14301.

21. “Rapport n°133 du 12 novembre 1945 du Dr Georges Hoffmann, délégué du CICR en Suède, 12/11/1945,” A CICR, O CMS, D 009-01; “Report of 11 October 1945 by Dr. Auguste Lindt, ICRC delegate in Germany, on the situation of the relief in Germany, 11/10/1945,” A CICR, O CMS D 008.03. For French and Italian examples: “Quelques données sur la situation dans le Sud-Ouest de la France (littoral méditerranéen),” A CICR, O CMS, D-138-12; and “Pro Memoria n°2. Situazione generale dell’Italia in rapporto alle necessità di soccorso,” A CICR, O CMS, D 220-01.

22. He denounced it in a report dated 28 September 1945 addressed to the director and founder of the JRC, Robert Boehringer: “Rapport d’Olivier Long: la Croix-Rouge internationale et l’après-guerre, 28/09/1945,” A CICR, O CMS, B-054.01.

23. “Rapports de mission de R. Jaquet, délégué de la CMS, 11/09/1944-30/08/1945,” A CICR, O CMS D-123; and “Pro Memoria n°2. Situazione generale dell’Italia in rapporto alle necessità di soccorso,” A CICR, O CMS, D 220-01.

24. Baughan, “Mrs Jellyby Nation.”

25. Atina Grossmann is one of the few researchers who have highlighted the ongoing data collection done with DPs in post-war Germany, especially on nutrition. Grossmann, “Grams, Calories, and Food.”

26. Droux, “Life During Wartime,” 185–206.

27. “Unesco – Conference of International Voluntary organisations on reconstruction and rehabilitation, Paris, 15 February 1947,” UNRRA, S-0416-0014-03.

28. The organization was of course not the only one to claim this part: other newly founded organizations also wished to fulfil this task, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), which was founded in 1948 and collected information from national institutes and ministries to compile data. To see an illustration in the field of childhood: “Ministero della Sanità,” Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Roma (ACS), 2725, busta 1.

29. Voldman, La reconstruction des villes françaises.

30. Mougel, “Des représentations urbaines à la destruction des villes,” 181.

31. The survey was published by Virgilio Bacchetta and more precisely commissioned by Professor T.H. Madsen, head of mission for Unicef in Italy. Bacchetta, Alimentazione e stato di nutrizione.

32. “Allemagne: situation alimentaire et sanitaire. 01/01/1945-09/01/1946,” A CICR, O CMS D-013.

33. “Vénétie – Italie: situation sanitaire, 15/01/1945-30/11/1945,” A CICR, O CMS D 221.

34. “Note à l’attention de M. le Dr. Feinstein, 30 août 1945,” A CICR, O CMS D-221.

35. “Memorandum du 7 août 1945 du professeur de Rudder de la clinique infantile de l’Université de Francfort-sur-le-Main sur la situation alimentaire générale et des enfants,” A CICR, O CMS D-013.10.

36. “Rapport concernant son voyage en Normandie du 31 décembre 1944 au 2 janvier 1945,” A CICR, O CMS D-123.05; and “France: situation alimentaire et sanitaire par département 23/08/1944 – 18/10/1946,” A CICR, O CMS D-137.

37. The Institut national d’hygiène is a French institute of public health. It was created in 1941 and is the ancestor of the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (Inserm), which still exists today.

38. Violle and Durand, “Enquête sur les laits à Marseille en 1946,” 919.

39. “School situation in Hesse. Information reports,” HStAD Bestand Q 4 Nr. 8/44-2/1. See also: “Report – Land Gvt Med Abtlg – TBC Consultant 1947-Februar,” Hessisches Staatsarchiv, Darmstadt (HstAD), Bestand Q 4 Nr. 8/120-3/21.

40. “Rapports divers sur la situation en Allemagne, remis par le Bureau intermédiaire pour le secours aux Allemands victimes de la guerre le 4 octobre 1945,” A CICR, O CMS D-012.07.

41. “Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, Direction générale des délégations en Italie. Rome, le 14 juin 1945, Rapport sur la Mission du C.I.C.R. en Italie du Sud,” A CICR, O CMS D-221; “Note au Docteur Boehringer Directeur de la CMS de la Croix-Rouge Internationale,” A CICR, O CMS D-233.

42. “Mortalité par tuberculose en France en 1947,” 11. See also: “Tuberculose, France,” UNRRA S-1352-0000-0055.

43. “WHO,” ACS, Ministero della sanità, Busta 1, fasc. 2725.

44. “Italie: situation sanitaire, 15/01/1945-30/11/1945,” A CICR, O CMS D-221.

45. Fambri, “Scuola e tubercolosi,” 569.

46. “Mortalité par tuberculose en France en 1947.”

47. Rollet and De Luca, “La vulnérabilité des enfants,” 263–79.

48. The term ‘expert’ is rather vague and there is no agreed definition among historians. As Sandrine Kott and Martin Lengwiler underlined, ‘the international expert is a polysemous figure, difficult to define. Sometimes it refers to the officials themselves […], sometimes to people who sit on committees or commissions set up by these [international] organizations, and sometimes to autonomous groups whose members are in contact with these same organizations.’ Kott and Lengwiler, “Expertise transnationale.” Children’s experts are all the more difficult to distinguish clearly, as they often find themselves in a multi-positional situation. I consider an expert to be anyone who can claim institutionally recognized scientific knowledge of childhood – be it in psychology, pedagogy, medicine, etc. – and who gives a public account of his or her knowledge in reports, studies, surveys, reviews or conferences. Kott and Lengwiler, “Expertise transnationale et protection sociale”; and Kott, “Une ‘communauté épistémique’ du social ?”

49. Moine, “Le récent déclin de la mortalité,” 337.

50. In France, for instance, the Rockefeller foundation and the INH organized many inquiries.

51. To know more about the development of new childhood sciences, see, for instance: Boussion, “Le premier congrès international de Psychiatrie infantile”; and Ohayon, “Les premiers moments de la psychanalyse pour enfant.”

52. In French, “Lieux de savoirs.” The French historian Christian Jacob defines them as ‘a place of construction, materialisation, objectification, inscription and social circulation’. Institutions, symposiums, statistical data grids are ‘lieux de savoirs’. Jacob, “Introduction.”

53. Boussion, “Pour la paix dans le monde.”

54. Preamble of the WHO constitution, July 22, 1946.

55. According to Jessica Reinisch, German public health was considered by the Allies as ‘an indispensable component of creating order, keeping the population governable, and facilitating the reconstruction of German society’. It was also linked to the way defeated people should be treated in the 1940s, according to them. Reinisch, The Perils of Peace, 2.

56. “Conférences pédagogiques de la Seine,” AN F/17/13364.

57. Zahra, The Lost Children.

58. “Aide de secours éventuelle aux enfants d’Italie par la Croix-Rouge sud-africaine. 10 avril 1946, A CICR, O CMS D-233; “Il problemo vitaminico nell’alimentazione infantile di guerra in Italia,” A CICR, O CMS D-221.

59. “Discorso di sua Santità Pio XII,” 153−5.

60. Levsen, Autorität und Demokratie; Mahé, “La fabrique des citoyens”; and Puaca, Learning Democracy.

61. Ordonnance n°45-2407 du 18 octobre 1945 sur la protection de la santé des enfants d’âge scolaire, les élèves et du personnel des établissements d’enseignement et d’éducation de tous ordres.

62. “Contrôle médical dans l’enseignement du 1^er degré,” Archives départementales du Calvados (AD), T/4415.

63. Fambri, “Scuola e tubercolosi,” 572.

64. “Health Italian Red Cross, 22 January 1947,” UNRRA, S-1470-0000-0035.

65. “Control Council, directive n. 54,” 153.

66. Including those who had emigrated to the other side of the Atlantic during or before the conflict, as Brian M. Puaca demonstrated for the educational issue. Puaca, Learning Democracy.

67. “Don Suisse, Reports,” UNRRA, S-0416-0010-04.

68. “Don Suisse, Reports,” UNRRA, S-0416-0010-04; and “Children’s Homes. Germany,” UNRRA, S-0438-006-01.

69. “School Situation in Hesse,” HStAD Bestand Q 4 Nr. 8/44-2/1.

70. Charnow, Maurice Pate, 30. Unicef also plays a key role to fight an infectious disease that is raising after 1945 in Italy, malaria.

71. Loi du 5 janvier 1950 rendant obligatoire pour certaines catégories de la population la vaccination par le vaccin antituberculeux B.C.G.

72. See: Giorgi and Pavan, Storia dello Stato sociale in Italia.

73. “Durchführung von Schutzimpfungen gegen Typhus, Paratyphus, Diphterie, Scharlach, Pocken und Tuberkulose, 1945–1960,” Institut für Stadtsgeschichte Frankfurt (ISG), Stadtgesundheitsamt, Sachakten, 176.

74. “P.U. Durand report, UNRRA team 572, 9 July 1946,” UNRRA, S-0438-006-01.

75. “Don Suisse, Reports,” UNRRA, S-0416-0010-04.

76. “Children’s homes. Germany,” UNRRA, S-0438-006-01.

77. “Instructions relatives aux placements d’enfants dans les préventorium et aériums de la Forêt Noire,” AN F/17/14299. For an example of the organization of such structures, see also: “Verordnung über die Tuberkulosehilfe, 1944–1948,” ISG Fürsorgeamt 916; and “Verordnung über die Tuberkulosehilfe, 1948–1951,” ISG Fürsorgeamt 917.

78. “Ufficio Presidenza, Orientamenti Assistenza, Varie,” Archivio Apostolico Vaticano (AAV), POA, busta 86.

79. In term of colonies, the Vatican’s weight is increasingly important, at the expense of the communists. While in 1946, 256,135 children are welcomed in 995 colonies, three years later there are 785,000 in 3324 colonies.

80. Durand, L’Église catholique.

81. Mahé, “Des familles de substitution.”

82. UNICEF played an important role in the fight against tuberculosis, for example through the tuberculosis stamp campaigns. Every year, it also sought, through the publication of recommendations, and within international congresses, to orient public policies.

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Camille Mahé

Camille Mahé is a lecturer in History at Sciences Po Strasbourg (Strasbourg University), a member of the LinCS and an affiliated researcher at the Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po (Paris). Her doctoral thesis, submitted as part of a joint PhD programme between the University of Warwick and Sciences Po in Paris in 2021, will be published in 2024 in French. She is currently studying children during and after the Second World War in France, Germany and Italy, mainly from a comparative and transnational perspective.