- Born
- Died
- Germaine Tillion was born on May 30, 1907 in Allègre, Haute-Loire, France. She was a writer, known for Germaine Tillion à Ravensbrück: Le verfügbar aux enfers (2009), À propos de... l'autre détail (1985) and Louis Lecoin: le cours d'une vie (1966). She died on April 19, 2008 in Paris, France.
- French feminist and anthropologist.
- She received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, one of France's highest honors. She was one of only five women who have received this honor.
- She was a French WWII Resistance fighter. After the war, she documented the history of the French Resistance. She also spoke out against the French colonial presence in Algeria.
- She studied anthropology, and did field research on semi-nomadic tribes in Algeria in the 1930s. She wrote a 700-page ethnography on one tribe, but the manuscript disappeared after the Nazis sent her to Ravensbruck, a camp for women and children, in 1943. She reconstructed the study from memory decades later, and it was published in 2000.
- I managed to survive Ravensbruck thanks to luck, to anger, to the desire to bring these crimes to light, and, finally, to the bonds of friendship. (from a 1988 book on Ravensbruck)
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content