Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz
Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz (born October 25, 1920 in Saint-Jean-de-Valériscle , Département Gard ; † February 14, 2002 in Paris ) was a niece of Charles de Gaulle , member of the Resistance and president of the ATD Fourth World human rights movement . She was the first woman to receive the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor for her public work .
biography
Geneviève de Gaulle grew up as the eldest of three children. Her father Xavier de Gaulle (1887–1955), the eldest brother of Charles de Gaulle, was an engineer; her mother died when she was four years old. From 1935 she studied history at the University of Rennes . After the defeat and German occupation of France in June 1940, Geneviève de Gaulle joined the Resistance and helped organize the intelligence service. Arrested by the French auxiliaries of the Gestapo on July 20, 1943, she was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp on February 2, 1944, where Heinrich Himmler ordered her to be held in solitary confinement for four months in order to be able to use her for a prisoner exchange. She was released in April 1945. She wrote a book about this time, which was also published in German under the title Durch die Nacht 1999. Later president of ADIR , the national organization of deported and interned women of the Resistance, she was actively involved in the legal prosecution of National Socialist war criminals . In 1987 she appeared as a witness in the trial of Klaus Barbie .
In 1946 she married the art publisher Bernard Anthonioz . Like him, she worked in André Malraux 's ministry and was involved in the Rassemblement du peuple français , the political movement founded by her uncle. In 1958 she met Joseph Wresinski , father of the homeless settlement Noisy-le-Grand and founder of the ATD Fourth World. After a period of volunteer work for this organization, she took over its presidency from 1964 to 2001.
In 1988 she became a member of the national economic and social council , through which she campaigned for improved legislation for the benefit of the poor. The law drafted with their help was passed by the French Parliament in 1998.
In addition to the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, she received the Human Rights Prize in France and the World (1994), the Médaille de la Résistance and the Croix de guerre (1939). Charles de Gaulle dedicated his book Mémoires de Guerre ("War Memories") to her.
Honor
On May 27, 2015, the remains of de Gaulle-Anthonioz ', together with those of Germaine Tillion , Pierre Brossolette and Jean Zay , were transferred to the Panthéon . This is the highest posthumous honor in France; the May 27 since 2014, the Journée nationale de la Résistance , a nationwide state memorial.
See also
literature
- Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz: Through the night . Arche, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-7160-2257-8 .
- Frédérique Neau-Dufour: Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz . Les Éditions du CERF, Paris, 2004. ISBN 978-2-204075-77-0 .
- Benoît Cazenave: Geneviève de Gaulle . In: Here was the whole: Europe , published by the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation . Metropol, Berlin 2004, ISBN 978-3-936411-43-0 .
Web links
- Extensive French biography
- Literature by and about Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ Documents - Documents. Journal for the German-French dialogue. H. 2, Sommer / Éte 2014, ISSN 0012-5172 p. 109
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Gaulle-Anthonioz, Geneviève de |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French politician (RPF) |
DATE OF BIRTH | October 25, 1920 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Saint-Jean-de-Valériscle |
DATE OF DEATH | February 14, 2002 |
Place of death | Paris |