page_title: Maurice Rossel
section_title: Auschwitz visit
hierarchical_section_title: Maurice Rossel / ICRC career / Auschwitz visit
caption_attribution_description: Map of Auschwitz Concentration Camp and environs, 1944
context_page_description: Maurice Rossel was a Swiss doctor and International Committee of the Red Cross official during the Holocaust. He is best known for visiting Theresienstadt concentration camp on 23 June 1944; he erroneously reported that Theresienstadt was the final destination for Jewish deportees and that their lives were "almost normal". His report, which is considered "emblematic of the failure of the ICRC" during the Holocaust, undermined the credibility of the more accurate Vrba-Wetzler Report and misled the ICRC about the Final Solution. Rossel later visited Auschwitz concentration camp. In 1979, he was interviewed by Claude Lanzmann; based on this footage, the 1997 film A Visitor from the Living was produced.
context_section_description: According to Rossel, it was forbidden both by the Nazi regime and the Red Cross to visit Auschwitz. Nevertheless, Rossel became the first Swiss person to visit the camp and spoke to the commandant of Auschwitz I. According to Czech historian Miroslav Kárný, the visit was on 29 September 1944, when more than 1,000 Theresienstadt prisoners were gassed and cremated at the nearby Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Rossel said that he did not notice any sign of mass murder. The ICRC states that the visit took place two days earlier, on 27 September. He later said that he did not see much of the camp, but did observe emaciated prisoners (Muselmänner) whose appearance greatly shocked him.
caption: The Auschwitz complex
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