Frédéric Ferrière
Frédéric Auguste Ferrière (born December 9, 1848 in Geneva , † June 14, 1924 ibid) was a Swiss doctor , member and vice-president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). During the First World War he founded the civil section of the International Center for Prisoners of War .
Life
He grew up as the fourth of five children of Jean-Emmanuel Ferrière (1804–1871) and Augusta Reinecke (1820–1896) in Geneva. The Ferrière family originally came from Normandy and settled in Geneva in the 18th century. His father and grandfather were pastors, as was his older brother Louis. His paternal grandmother, Suzanne Develay, had died of typhus , which she had probably contracted from soldiers whom she cared for in Geneva in 1814 while traveling through. Louis Appia , one of the founders of the ICRC, was a nephew of this grandmother.
After his school days in Geneva Ferrière went to study medicine in Bern, Heidelberg (with Arnold, Viktor Gegenbauer, Simon, Nicolaus Friedreich ) and Vienna (with Theodor Billroth , Ferdinand von Hebra ). In 1875 he became a doctor of medicine in Heidelberg and in 1878 he was licensed as a doctor in Geneva. After completing his studies and during the Franco-Prussian War , Pfleger became involved in one of the first ambulances of the Red Cross next to Louis Appia. In addition to his work as a doctor in Geneva, he devoted himself to building up the Red Cross. When he was sent to Montenegro by the ICRC with Aloïs Humbert and Charles Gretz in 1875-76 , he helped found the National Red Cross of Montenegro in 1876 and there headed a Red Cross ambulance during the Russo-Ottoman War . He married Adolphine Faber (1853–1932) in Vienna in 1878, with whom he had four children. His eldest son Adolphe became a co-founder of reform pedagogy (Éducation nouvelle).
In 1884 he became a member of the ICRC. From 1878 to 1920 he took part in numerous congresses on hygiene and in delegations to publicize the Red Cross and its usefulness in peacetime and for the civilian population, which took him from Saint Petersburg to Egypt and New York. As a hygiene specialist, he promoted the participation of the Red Cross in the fight against typhus (conference in London in 1907, later missions in Vienna). Several IRKR missions took him to Germany in 1915 and to the Balkans in 1917 and 1919. In 1920 he was a co-founder of the Union Internationale de secours aux enfants . From this point on, Ferrière gave up his doctor's practice in order to fully serve the Red Cross.
The International Central Agency for Refugees (IPWA) of the ICRC, newly established in 1914, was intended exclusively for prisoners of war due to the mandate given on the occasion of the 9th Washington Conference in 1912 (Resolution VI). Contrary to the advice of the other committee members, who believed that the Red Cross had to abide by the conventions signed by many states and that this additional task would be beyond the capabilities of the ICRC, Ferrière felt that it did not respond to searches from civilians leave unanswered. He founded a private civil section of the IPWA, which was helped by people close to him and which was soon joined by hundreds of volunteers from all walks of life. The French writer Romain Rolland helped as a volunteer from October 1914 to July 1915 and when he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915, he donated half of the prize money to the central office. Despite the legal vacuum, this section was soon perceived as an organ of the Red Cross. The rapid growth of this branch marked a positive turning point in the popularity of the Red Cross and its development. The civil section continued its activities until the early 1920s.
On September 14, 1939, the central office for prisoners of war was reopened in Geneva, which had a civilian department headed by Suzanne Ferrière , a niece of Fréderic Ferrière. With the new version of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, civilians could be formally integrated as a mandate of the Red Cross.
“ But that man who is the soul of it all, whose initiative is to be thanked for the rescue of the civilian prisoners, stands in his place today as on the first day, Doctor F. Ferrière, an old man and, as one might at first think, a tired one Man. He already served as a volunteer doctor in the war in 1870, and yet when he was almost seventy he went down to the Bulgarian battlefields in the Balkan War, and the present war in particular has given him a strength that only the deeply moved feeling can give to a human work . "
Honors
Numerous honors testify to the great appreciation for his efforts in the service of the ICRC.
- 1871 Baden Medal of Merit
- 1871 Medal of Merit Prussia
- 1876 Order of St. Sava Serbia
- 1886 Cross of Queen Nathalie of Serbia
- 1896 Swiss commemorative diploma for services
- 1908 Knight of the Legion of Honor
- 1918 Order of Danilos I for independence (Montenegro), (Grand Officer)
- 1919 gold medal Grateful France
- 1919 gold medal Grateful Belgium
- 1919 Salvatore Medal (City of Vienna)
- 1920 Order of St. Sava Serbia, Grand Officer
- 1921 Cross of Honor of the University of Vienna
- 1923 Knight of the Belgian Order of the Crown
- 1924 Officer of the Legion of Honor
- numerous medals from national Red Cross societies (Montenegro, Serbia, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Estonia etc.)
literature
- Stefan Zweig : The heart of Europe. A visit to the Geneva Red Cross. Illustrated by Frans Masereel . Rascher publishing house, Zurich 1918.
- Anna Nussbaum, Else Feldmann, Fréderic Ferrière (preface): The travel book of the Viennese child. A collection of letters, essays and drawings by Viennese schoolchildren abroad. Gloriette Verlag, Vienna 1921.
- Georges Werner: Frédéric Ferrière, 1848-1924. Biography and bibliography. Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge, 1924.
- Adolphe Ferrière: Le Dr Frédéric Ferrière. Son action à la Croix-Rouge internationale en faveur des civils victimes de la guerre. Foreword by Noëlle Roger and introduction by Marguerite Frick-Cramer, Genève, 1948.
- Rachad Armanios: Le Dr Frédéric Ferrière. Les années de formation d'un médecin et d'un philanthrope . Mémoire de license de l'unité d'Histoire contemporaine du Département d'histoire générale de la Faculté des lettres, University of Geneva , Geneva 2003.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archiv Ferrière: Genealogie ( Memento des Originals from April 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Obituary by Romain Rolland, 1924 ( Memento of the original from April 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Adolphe Ferrière: Le Dr Frédéric Ferrière. Son action à la Croix-Rouge internationale en faveur des civils victimes de la guerre. , 1948 ( Memento of the original from April 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Nicole Billeter: Words against the desecration of the spirit !: War views of writers in the Swiss emigration 1914/1918 . Peter Lang Verlag, Bern 2005, ISBN 978-3-03910-417-8
- ↑ Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Time of War, concluded in Geneva on August 12, 1949
- ↑ First published in "Neue Freie Presse", Vienna on December 23, 1917
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ferrière, Frédéric |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ferrière, Frédéric Auguste (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss doctor, member and vice-president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 9, 1848 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Geneva |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 14, 1924 |
| Place of death | Geneva |