Second World War French Resistance fighter Germaine Tillion dies at 100

Germaine Tillion, a Second World War resistance fighter and celebrated anthropologist, died Saturday, her association said. She was 100.

Tillion, who wrote about her experiences in a Nazi camp, died at her home in Saint-Mande in the Paris region, said the head of the Germaine Tillion Association, Tzvetan Todorov.

Tillion was sent in 1943 to the Nazi camp for women and children in Ravensbruck, Germany, for her work with France's underground Resistance network.

She was the recipient of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, one of France's highest distinctions. She was one of only five women to have received such an honour.

Tillion wrote extensively about her experiences in the camp, revisiting through her work the place where her mother died.

In a 1988 book on the camp, Tillion wrote that she had managed to survive thanks to luck, anger, the desire to bring crimes to light and to the bonds of friendship.

After the end of Second World War, Tillion devoted herself to documenting the history of France's Resistance to German occupation. She was also a prominent voice against the French colonial presence in Algeria and spoke out against torture.

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