Forgotten in Service: The War Experience of the Slovak Red Cross Nurses 1941 – 1944

The study focuses on the wartime Slovak state policy towards the Slovak Red Cross (SRC), with special regards to deployment of SRC nurses at the Eastern front. Since the autumn 1938 the organisation faced politically imposed changes of both its management and structure. Its mission, based on principles of humanity, impartiality and neutrality, was permanently undermined by the government combining officially promoted conservative clerical values and glorification of the national-socialist ideology. However, the ongoing war, resulting in a growing number of wounded, captured and missing persons, found the government inevitably and increasingly relying on the SRC for expert health care skills as well as for contacts within international Red Cross networks. Even more, the deployment of SRC nurses in the field hospitals produced a women role-model of a skilled, courageous authority figure worthy of public merit. The analysis of contemporary governmental and SRC press traces the problematic incorporation of such unconventional heroes into the tight frames of contemporary official propaganda.