Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz
| Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz | |
|---|---|
| Born |
25 October 1920 Saint-Jean-de-Valériscle, France |
| Died | 14 February 2002 (aged 81) Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | President, ATD Quart Monde |
Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz (25 October 1920 – 14 February 2002) was a member of the French Resistance and served as president of ATD Quart Monde. Her uncle was General Charles de Gaulle.
Geneviève de Gaulle joined the Resistance after the occupation of France in June 1940 and expanded its publicity networks, in particular that of Défense de la France. She was arrested by Pierre Bonny of the French Gestapo on 20 July 1943, imprisoned in Fresnes and deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp on 2 February 1944.
In October 1944, de Gaulle was placed in isolation in the camp bunker. Heinrich Himmler made the decision to keep her alive to use her as a possible exchange prisoner. She was released in April 1945. In 1946 she married Bernard Anthonioz, a fellow resistance member and art editor, with whom she had four children.
Fifty years after her release from Ravensbrück Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz wrote the book La Traversée de la nuit (literally, The Crossing of the Night) about her life in the concentration camp and the mutual help among the women. It was translated to English and published by Arcade Publishing as The Dawn of Hope: A Memoir of Ravensbrück [], and re-published by Points in 1998 as God Remained Outside - An Echo of Ravensbruck.
As an active member and later president of the ADIR (Association of Deportées and Internées of the Résistance), she filed lawsuits against Nazi war criminals, then took part in the rise of the political movement launched by her uncle, Rassemblement du peuple français (Rally of the French People).
In 1958, de Gaulle-Anthonioz worked with the cabinet of André Malraux of which her husband was a member. She met Father Joseph Wresinski, then chaplain of the town of Noisy-le-Grand. The suffering of the families she met there revived those which she and other deportees had experienced.
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