Marcel Junod

Marcel Junod was a Swiss medical doctor and one of the most accomplished field delegates in the history of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). After medical school and a short position as a surgeon in Mulhouse, France, he became an ICRC delegate and was deployed in Ethiopia during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and in Europe as well as in Japan during World War II. In 1947, he wrote a book with the title Warrior without Weapons about his experiences. After the war, he worked for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) as chief representative in China, and settled back in Europe in 1950. He founded the anaesthesiology department of the Cantonal Hospital in Geneva and became the first professor in this discipline at the University of Geneva. In 1952, he was appointed a member of the ICRC and, after many more missions for this institution, was Vice-President from 1959 until his death in 1961.