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Germaine Tillion
Germaine Tillion (30 May 1907 – 18 April 2008) was a French ethnologist, known for her work in Algeria in the 1950s on behalf of the Government of France. A member of the French Resistance in World War II, she spent time in Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Tillion was born on May 30, 1907, in Allegre (Haute-Loire) in south-central France. She was the daughter of Lucien Tillion, a magistrate, and Émilie Cussac Tillion. Her mother was also noted as an art historian and a French resistance fighter. She had a sister called Francoise. Germaine Tillion's family belongs to the french bourgeoisie, they are both republicans and catholics.
Tillion spent her youth with her family in Clermont-Ferrand. At the age of 8, Germaine Tillion and her sister Françoise Tillion were sent to Jeanne d'Arc Institution, in Clermont-Ferrand. She studied there from primary to secondary school, at the start of World War One.
In 1922, her parents moved to Saint-Maur, in her maternal grandparents' house, François Cussac (1849-1927) et Marie-Antoinette Vivier (1851-1945).
She left for Paris to study social anthropology with Marcel Mauss and Louis Massignon, obtaining degrees from the École pratique des hautes études, the École du Louvre, and the INALCO. Four times between 1934 and 1940 she did fieldwork in Algeria, studying the Chaoui Berber people in the Aures region of northeastern Algeria, to prepare for her doctorate in anthropology.
As Tillion returned to Paris from the field in 1940, France had been invaded by Germany. As her first act of resistance, she helped a Jewish family by giving them her family's papers. She became one of the members in the French Resistance in the network of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. Her missions included helping prisoners to escape and organizing intelligence for the allied forces from 1940 to 1942.
Betrayed by the priest Robert Alesch who had joined her resistance network and gained her confidence, she was arrested on August 13, 1942.[citation needed] She was transported in the Convoi des 31000 in 1943.
On 21 October 1943, Tillion was sent to the German concentration camp of Ravensbrück, near Berlin with her mother, Émilie, also a résistante. From her arrival on 21 October 1943 to the fall of the camp in spring 1945, she secretly wrote an operetta comedy to entertain the fellow prisoners. "Le Verfügbar aux Enfers" describes the camp life of the "Verfügbar" (German for "available", the lowest class of prisoners who could be used for any kind of work). At the same time she undertook a precise ethnographic analysis of the concentration camp. Other prisoners included Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Jacqueline Fleury and Fleury's mother.
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Germaine Tillion
Germaine Tillion (30 May 1907 – 18 April 2008) was a French ethnologist, known for her work in Algeria in the 1950s on behalf of the Government of France. A member of the French Resistance in World War II, she spent time in Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Tillion was born on May 30, 1907, in Allegre (Haute-Loire) in south-central France. She was the daughter of Lucien Tillion, a magistrate, and Émilie Cussac Tillion. Her mother was also noted as an art historian and a French resistance fighter. She had a sister called Francoise. Germaine Tillion's family belongs to the french bourgeoisie, they are both republicans and catholics.
Tillion spent her youth with her family in Clermont-Ferrand. At the age of 8, Germaine Tillion and her sister Françoise Tillion were sent to Jeanne d'Arc Institution, in Clermont-Ferrand. She studied there from primary to secondary school, at the start of World War One.
In 1922, her parents moved to Saint-Maur, in her maternal grandparents' house, François Cussac (1849-1927) et Marie-Antoinette Vivier (1851-1945).
She left for Paris to study social anthropology with Marcel Mauss and Louis Massignon, obtaining degrees from the École pratique des hautes études, the École du Louvre, and the INALCO. Four times between 1934 and 1940 she did fieldwork in Algeria, studying the Chaoui Berber people in the Aures region of northeastern Algeria, to prepare for her doctorate in anthropology.
As Tillion returned to Paris from the field in 1940, France had been invaded by Germany. As her first act of resistance, she helped a Jewish family by giving them her family's papers. She became one of the members in the French Resistance in the network of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. Her missions included helping prisoners to escape and organizing intelligence for the allied forces from 1940 to 1942.
Betrayed by the priest Robert Alesch who had joined her resistance network and gained her confidence, she was arrested on August 13, 1942.[citation needed] She was transported in the Convoi des 31000 in 1943.
On 21 October 1943, Tillion was sent to the German concentration camp of Ravensbrück, near Berlin with her mother, Émilie, also a résistante. From her arrival on 21 October 1943 to the fall of the camp in spring 1945, she secretly wrote an operetta comedy to entertain the fellow prisoners. "Le Verfügbar aux Enfers" describes the camp life of the "Verfügbar" (German for "available", the lowest class of prisoners who could be used for any kind of work). At the same time she undertook a precise ethnographic analysis of the concentration camp. Other prisoners included Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Jacqueline Fleury and Fleury's mother.