Tillion, Germaine (b. 1907)

French ethnologist. Pronunciation: TEEYEE-OH. Born at Allègre (Haute-Loire), May 30, 1907; dau. of Lucien Tillion (d. 1925, magistrate) and Émilie (Cussac) Tillion (1875–1945, art historian); educated at Lycée Jeanne-d'Arc in Clermont-Ferrand and Institut d'Ethnologie (Sorbonne).

Pioneering French ethnologist, a student of Algerian desert tribes, who was an early leader in the French Resistance during WWII, survived internment at the Ravensbrück concentration camp, wrote a germinal study of the camp system, and worked for peace during the Algerian War for Independence; lived with a Berber tribe in southeastern Algeria (1934–40); joined the Resistance (1940); arrested and imprisoned (1942–43); interned at the Ravensbrück concentration camp (1943–45); published 1st edition of Ravensbrück (1946); sent on a mission to Algeria and founded the Centres sociaux (1954–56); published L'Algérie en 1957 and had secret meetings with Algerian leaders (1957); organized education for prisoners while at the Ministry of Education (1959–60); published Le Harem et les cousins, a study of the treatment of women in Mediterranean cultures (1967); published revised edition of Ravensbrück, responding to revisionist theses on the camp system (1973); ended teaching career at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (1977); named president of the French Section of the Minority Rights Group (1978); published 3rd edition (rev.) of Ravensbrück (1988).

See also Women in World History.