Germaine Tillion

Infobox Person


image_size = 150px
name = Germaine Tillion
caption =
birth_date = birth date|1907|5|30
birth_place = Allègre, Haute-Loire, France
death_date = death date and age|2008|4|19|1907|5|30
death_place =
occupation = Anthropologist

Germaine Tillion (May 30 1907 – April 19 2008) was a French anthropologist, best known for her work in Algeria in the 1950s on behalf of the French government.

Tillion was born in Allègre in Haute-Loire. Studying anthropology under Marcel Mauss, she lived in Algeria on various occasions between 1934 and 1940, studying the Berber and Chaoui people in the Aures region of northeastern Algeria. During World War II, Tillion participated in the French Resistance. Captured, she was sent to the German concentration camp at Ravensbrück in 1943. After the war, she completed her doctorate under Louis Massignon.

In the 1950s, during the Algerian War of Independence, Tillion served as an adviser to the French government in Algeria on its social policies, helping the government to set up 'Social Centres'. During this period, at the time of the battle of Algiers, she served as a liaison between the National Liberation Front leader Saadi Yacef and the French government, and helped arrange several cease-fires. Tillion was among the first to denounce the use of torture by French forces in the war.

In 1977 Germaine Tillion was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca and holds France's Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur. She was Honorary Director at France's School of High Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) at the time of her death.

Honours

* Grand-croix de la Légion d'honneur (Only five women were awarded Grand Cross of the Légion of Honor) .
* Grand-Croix de l'Ordre national du Mérite
* Croix de guerre 1939-1945
* Médaille de la Résistance
* Médaille de la déportation et de l'internement pour faits de Résistance
* Grand Cross of the German Merit, (2004)

Bibliography

*
*
*
*
*
*
*

References

*Adams, Geoffrey (1998). "The Call of Conscience: French Protestant Responses to the Algeria War, 1954-62". Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
*Charrad, Mounira (2001). "States and Women's Rights". Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Horne, Alistair (1978). "A Savage War of Peace". New York: Viking.
*Kahler, Eric (1957). "The Tower and the Abyss: An Inquiry into the Transformation of the Individual". New York: Braziller.
*Kraft, Joseph (1958). "In North Africa Peace Alone Will Not Be Enough." "New York Times". July 6.
*Michalczyk, John (1998). " Resisters, Rescuers, and Refugees". Kansas City: Sheed and Ward.

External links

* [http://www.germaine-tillion.org/ Germaine Tillion's website]
* [http://marranci.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/in-memory-of-the-anthropologist-germaine-tillion/ In memory of the anthropologist Germaine Tillion]
* [http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2008/04/19/french_resistance_hero_germaine_tillion_dies_at_100/ French resistance hero Germaine Tillion dies at 100]