Heiden, Switzerland, October 30, 1910. Henri Dunant, a Swiss businessman, philanthropist and humanitarian activist, died at the age of 88, nine years after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

Long before that, in 1859, Dunant went on a business trip to Italy and witnessed the bloody Battle of Solferino. The conflict between the Austrians and the armies of Piedmont and France left 38,000 dead and wounded, but all of them were scarcely an opportunity and an effort to recover. Shocked, Dunant began to recruit civilians, bought material and helped prepare the hospital. He convinced the locals to take care of the wounded on both sides and managed to free the Austrian doctors who had been intercepted by the French so that they could also work.

The echo of the horrors of Solferino reached the Basque Country. The wounds of the battle made a Basque blind, and Jean Baptiste Elizanburu wrote the well-known series of The Blind Copla of Solferino. The second stanza says:

Dunant, on the other hand, collected the lives there in the prose, in The Memory of Solferino, published in 1862. In addition to dealing with the circumstances and consequences of the battle, he mentioned in his book the need to create a neutral institution to care for wounded citizens and soldiers in the future. He distributed the copies to political and military leaders in Europe. The

President of the Society for Public Welfare in Geneva, Gustave Moynier, welcomed Dunant's proposal, and the association held a meeting on the subject on February 9, 1863. At the meeting, Dunant and four others decided to create a five-member committee. The Committee met for the first time shortly thereafter, on 17 February, and although the well-known symbol began to be used later, the International Red Cross was formed on that day.