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Les territoires occupés, lieux d’expériences croisées entre les ennemis en armes, et les civils ont été pendant la Grande Guerre des laboratoires pour le xxe siècle : des fronts atypiques dont les canons et les gaz s’appelleraient surveillance, faim, travail forcé, et même déportation et camp de concentration. Laboratoire aussi pour les organisations humanitaires dont le CICR, qui, bien préparé à soutenir blessés et prisonniers, devaient se réinventer face à ces civils, majoritairement femmes, enfants, vieillards, qui se retrouvaient en première ligne.

During the Great War, occupied territories, which became places of crossed experiments between armed enemies and civilians – can be seen as laboratories for the xxth century : atypical fronts whose canons and gas would be closed surveillance, hunger, forced labor, and even deportation and concentration camps. Laboratories also for humanitarian organizations as IRCC : they had been well prepared to support wounded and prisoners of war but they had to reinvent themselves for the needs of these civilians, mainly women, elderlies and children, who were suffering on this special front line.