23 replies to this topic

[mrfish]

Not sure if this will matter to many Pals, but I've just noticed that the ICRC website now states the following...

Since the 15th October 2009, all genealogical and individual inquiries relating to the First World War are submitted to a fee of 200.- Swiss Francs per prisoner and/or internee.

This is about £120.

Having used their archive services in the past, the information they can give can be quite interesting; date and place of capture, places of internment etc.  But not £120 worth of interesting!

They have previously charged about 40CHF per hour for research (£24), and needed about 2 hours to get what you need, which was still a bit expensive, but might have been worth it if you were after additional information.  I've certainly had some good results.

I think the ICRC is missing a trick here.  There is obviously massive interest in what they hold.  If TNA are able to work in partnership with websites like Ancestry to provide information like soldiers service papers, why can't the ICRC?  Instead they seem to be actively discouraging enquiries with these new charges.  If they did this right, maybe in partnership with someone like Ancestry they could make the info on Great War POWs available to download and make some money to boot!

I'm not sure what has prompted this change in pricing policy, perhaps a glut of enquiries, but this latest move will certainly make tracking WW1 POWs more expensive, perhaps prohibitively so?

Come on ICRC!  Almost a hundred years on from the beginning of the conflict, it's time to move your information technology into the 21st Century.

Or am I being disingenuous?

mrfish
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[c clive]

I still have not had any reply to a request I made weeks ago. How long do they normally take. Colin

[mrfish]

Colin, at least 3 months in my experience, but upto 6!  They aren't quick, but for £120 I would expect next day!

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[Paul Reed]

It was my understanding these records are being digitised to be made available online from 2014.

Maybe the pricing reflects the difficulties in accessing the material while it is being scanned?

[archangel9]

Certainly seems over the top to me. I recently received some very good information from them for free. I would have been willing to pay a reasonable fee. £120 up front, wait for maybe 6 months or more, not knowing what to expect. I doubt if I will be using the service again if this is the case.

John

[Doug Johnson]

The ICRC rules do not permit free access to details of PoW for 100 years.  Having said that, UNESCO are supposedly financing the digitising of the records to enable them to be published on the internet, presumably in time for the 100 year release date.  Threre is little information on what the ICRC hold on PoWs and less detail on what is intended to be published.  The increase in cost may be due to an increase in enquiries which may be hampering the digitising so putting up the cost will limit the enquiries and allow them to spend more time in getting them published.  Hopefully the published details will be free to access in the same way as the Australian records are.

Doug

PS is it still free for relatives?

[Bitsa]

After waiting six months the ICRC finally came up with nothing more than I already knew about my grandfather i.e. name, rank, number and date of repatriation.  

I would have been mighty peeved if I had paid £120 for information I already had.

Bitsa.

[mrfish]

PS is it still free for relatives?

I don't think so.  They state...

Except for the First World War, research is carried out free of charge when it has been requested by the individual concerned himself/herself or by his/her next of kin (brother, sister, wife, husband, father, mother, children, grand-children).

If it's taking 5 years to digitise, it sounds like they are using the same monkeys we are at work.  I know there is probably quite a lot of info, but I suspect I could write it all out by hand in 5 years!

However, I accept it might be the 100 year disclosure that is actually holding up the publishing of the info.

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[roughdiamond]

Not sure if this will matter to many Pals, but I've just noticed that the ICRC website now states the following...

Since the 15th October 2009, all genealogical and individual inquiries relating to the First World War are submitted to a fee of 200.- Swiss Francs per prisoner and/or internee.

This is about £120.

I noticed that myself when I posted a link for someone looking for info on their Grandfather, it seems really steep when I compare it to the £30 cheque I sent yesterday to the Jock Guards for details of my Great Uncles service, at least in that case I'm almost certain to get a lot back.

Is it just me or does it smack of the ICRC realising they have a valuable money spinning asset on their hands and deciding to shamelessly cash in on it?

[stevie2006]

Hi I requested information on my great uncle around 7-9 months ago and because I am moving house soon I submitted another a few weeks ago.

Can it take this long?  Is there any way to check if they have it?  Just looking at some of the posts most people receive something in a few months or so.  If I don't receive anything does this mean that they not have any information on him?

I sent request via email on ICRC web site but is this the best way to do it or is it better to send a letter via royal mail?

Also my great uncle was held in Denain Medical hospital rather than a POW camp.  I am presuming captured but wounded and he then subsequently died in the hospital but would this make a difference to ICRC records?

Thanks

Steven

[mrfish]

Can it take this long?  Is there any way to check if they have it?  Just looking at some of the posts most people receive something in a few months or so.  If I don't receive anything does this mean that they not have any information on him?

If I were you I'd email them.  I've had to do this in the past, but they are generally pretty good at responding.  Make sure you include details of your original submission in the email.

archives.gva@icrc.org

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[Siege Gunner]

Since the 15th October 2009, all genealogical and individual inquiries relating to the First World War are submitted to a fee of 200.- Swiss Francs per prisoner and/or internee.

I can't seem to find this section on the ICRC website.  Could someone please oblige with a direct link to the page concerned.  Thanks.

[mrfish]

I can't seem to find this section on the ICRC website.  Could someone please oblige with a direct link to the page concerned.  Thanks.

Here you go...#

www.icrc.org/eng/contact-archives

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[Siege Gunner]

Thank you kindly, Mr Fish  - www.icrc.org/eng/contact-archives

[Doug Johnson]

The 100 year rule has been changed (a few years before I read about the 100 year rule on the ICRS web site!).  The rule is now 40 years but only ever accessible through ICRC staff.  There does not appear to be any timescale for them being freely available.  Has anyone any more information on the UNESCO funded digitisation i.e. is it still on and if so what records are they doing?

Doug

[Vinmatcal]

The 100 year rule has been changed (a few years before I read about the 100 year rule on the ICRS web site!).  The rule is now 40 years but only ever accessible through ICRC staff.  There does not appear to be any timescale for them being freely available.  Has anyone any more information on the UNESCO funded digitisation i.e. is it still on and if so what records are they doing?

Doug

Hi Doug, what if you applied prior to Oct 2009 ?  Is that query free? Vince

[stevie2006]

Hi Vince I am in the same position as you.  I submitted two requests (the second as I knew I as moving house) around 6-9 months ago and have heard nothing.  I worry that they have just ignored any recent requests as they knew they would be introducing charges and will only deal with requests that have paid a fee.

Steven

[stevie2006]

Can't believe it but received reply from ICRC today - almost a year to the day from when I submitted my request and had given up hope.

It gave his place of capture as 23/3/1918 in Beaumetz.

Place of detention Parchim i/Meckl (according to list dated 24/5/1918 and 2 lists dated 19/9/1918)

Cause of death mentioned is pneumonia

I also have a certified copy of letter in German dated 7/9/1918 which roughly translates like a telegram advising of death and fatehr is noted.

Can anyone give me any informtion on what battles etc may have taken place around 23/3/1918 when he was captured.

Also does anyone have any information on the POW camp mentioned?

I am guessing he was either wounded when captured or very badly treated as his date of death is given as 25/7/1918 which is not long after capture

Thanks

Steven

[Doug Johnson]

Steven,

Pleased to hear that the ICRC are responding even if they are taking their time (it is possible that they are copying the cards and releasing the information as they come across ones where they have an enquiry).

If I have the story right from your various posts, and please correct me if I am wrong, then his story is as follows;

Captured 23rd March 1918 during the spring offensive.
Registered at Parchim PoW camp sometime in May 1918
Died at Denain on 25th July 1918

It is unlikely in my opinion, that he was wounded and held in Denain until he died, four months seems too long a time for him to be held in a hospital that close to the front.  If he was wounded and able to survive that long it is more than likely that he would have been moved back to a hospital in Germany for treatment.  It is also unlikely that he was ever in Parchim.  There is no evidence that British prisoners were moved to the western front from Germany (some were sent to the eastern front).  There is a lot of evidence that fairly large numbers of prisoners captured during the spring offensive remained working behind the German lines in appalling conditions and that many died as a result of "enemy fire" or of malnutrition and neglect. (Cd 9106 Miscellaneous No 19 (1918) Report on the Treatment by the Germans of Prisoners of War taken during the spring offensives of 1918).  It is therefore likely that he was unwounded when captured, forced to work behind the lines, perhaps accommodated in the open, and starved, then possibly being moved into Denain hospital when he became too ill to work.  He was merely registered at Parchim camp as a means of providing an address for parcels etc (there are references to prisoners working behind the lines receiving parcels which may explain why PoW parcels were found in the German trenches).

Doug

PS I do not have any photographs of British PoWs in Parchim.  

[stevie2006]

Thanks for that Doug

Steven

[Doug Johnson]

An extract from Cd 9106 Miscellaneous No 19 (1918) Report on the Treatment of by the Germans of Prisoners of War taken during the spring offensives of 1918

At Prowy, about 20 kilom. behind Cambrai, where as many as 1,500 were confined in a disused sugar refinery, the men suffered terribly from cold and want of food.  One of the witnesses, now among the escaped himself, fainted from starvation.

"The food consisted of 1/4-loaf of bread and coffee and vegetables given very irregularly, and very little of it."

Another witness says;

"We slept on cement floors, no blankets, no straw, and fires were not allowed.  Our bread ration sometimes failed for thirty-six hours.  Lots of men fell sick and fainted frrom exhaustion.  There was a lot of dysentery, and the only medicine we got was nettle leaves boiled in water.  One man of the R.M.L.I. died here from exhaustion...  The guards were very offensive, and used their rifle buts on us"

"On the 17th April 200 of us were marched to the Canal du Nord, about 10 kilom. this side of Cambrai; we were not under shell fire there.  There were dug-outs on the canal banks to sleep in, and we worked at laying railways, loading wagons etc.  There were already 200 men there before we arrived; they were in a shocking condition."

This extract relates to Sailly;

".... The men were like wild animals with hunger, and scramble for any piece of food which may be lying about, also for cigarette ends.  The water we had to drink was drawn from a filthy marsh near the camp.  Besides much dysentery there was a lot of dropsy, men's legs and bodies swelling terribly.  There were about sixty men permanently sick, and five or six going to hospital daily..."

Doug

NB Denain was primarily a distribution centre for PoWs.

[stevie2006]

Thanks for that Doug not nice reading but have always thought that would be the case.  The story I was always told was that he was starved to death.  Although the ICRC said pneumonia Donald's obituary in the Alloa Advertiser from 1918 said starvation and fever.

There were only a few months from his capture to his death so the story about being worked to death seems so accurate.

The galling thing is that he had survived most of the war and died so close to the end.

I have now found his medal card, WW1 Service Record, where he is buried, some photo's, newspaper articles and photo's of his grave.  The final piece of the jigsaw was the ICRC records which I received today and it feels good to have completed the full picture.

I also managed to find out his cousin also named Donald McKinnon Anderson (ref 875106) who emmigrated to Canada in 1911 also served in WW1 with the Canadian Army and managed to get his Attestation record and have sent away for his War record so will see what that is like.

Many thanks again for the information Doug, you have always given me good help

Steven

[stevie2006]

Doug or any other forum members - would anyone know what battle or offensive Donald would have been involved in when he was captured.

He served with the Aygyll and Sutherland Highlanders and I think may have been a machine gunner with the 1/7th.  Beaumetz was given as place of capture.

Is there anything else anyone could suggest I do next - I think that is pretty much me but don't want to miss anything out in my research?

Many thanks

Steven

[archangel9]

Also received a reply today from ICRC, more than 12 months since I applied. Delighted with their response

John