Musée International de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge (International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum)

Musée International de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge (International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum) Review

Powerful mute statues speak to the need for human kindness in the face of disaster, and balanced but often grim exhibits trace the history of the struggle to provide it in this carefully nonjudgmental museum buried in the hillside beneath the world headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Audiovisuals show the post-battle horrors at Solferino that moved Henry Dunant to form the Red Cross; endless aisles of file boxes hold 7 million records of World War I prisoners. Good deeds are dramatized, from the proverbial Samaritan's to Clara Barton's. There's a replica of a 6½-foot by 6½-foot concrete cell in which Red Cross workers discovered 17 political prisoners; the Mur du Temps (Wall of Time), a simple timeline punctuated by armed conflicts and natural disasters in which more than 10,000 people died, puts the overall story into sobering perspective. Good news, in the form of disaster-relief kits and snapshots used to reunite Rwandan families after the 1994 genocide, is also on display, however; signage and audio guides are in English.