COMITE INTERNATIONAL DE LA CROIX-ROUGE

					Geneva, 10 May 1979
					Fpe/grt

Dear Madam,

We have pleasure in acknowledging receipt of your letter of 12
April concerning the victims of the Second World War, together
with the enclosed booklet. We did already have a copy of this
document, which is not the only one of its kind. Indeed, the ICRC
and several National Societies, in particular, the American
Red Cross, have received a great deal of correspondence on
this matter.

The booklet in question supports its false allegations by two
abridged quotations taken from two documents published by the
ICRC:

	"Report of the International Committee of the Red
	Cross on its activities dueing the Second World War"
  	(3 volumes)

	"The work of the ICRC for civilian detainees in German
	Concentration Camps" (1 volume)

These two documents, which we are sending you under separate
cover, contain the basic information which the ICRC possesses
on the victims of the Second World War.

Unfortunately, we are not able to provide you with the figures
you are seeking, since the ICRC has never tried to compile
statistics on the victims of the war and has never certified
the accuracy of the statistics produced by a third party. In
fact, the basic aim of the ICRC is to come to the aid of
victims of armed conflicts and not to act as a commission of
enquiry or a statistics service.

With regard to the figure of 300,000 victims quoted on page 28
of the document you sent us, on 19 January 1955 the newspaper
"Die Tat" published an article (of which a photocopy is
enclosed) giving figures for the victims of the Second World
War, including that of 300,000.

As you will see upon reading this article, first, the figure
of 300,000 was not given by the ICRC and, secondly, it refers
only to the _German_ victims (Jews and non-Jews) of the
concentration camps. The authors of the booklet have therefore
doubly falsified their information, by claiming that the
figure relates to all the Jewish deportation victims and by
naming the ICRC as its source.

Finally, for your information, we are sending a copy of the
ICRC information bulletin "The ICRC in Action" of 12 December
1975, the last page of which mentions the work of the ICRC in
concentration camps.

We hope this information will be of use to you.

				Yours faithfully,
				s/
				R. Gaillard-Moret
				Head of Documentation
				and Dissemination