Simone Veil: A Woman For A Change

[+ stevenkesslar]

She died on June 30th, but I just read about it. What a lifetime of inspiration.

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/30/simone-veil-obituary

 

In November 1974, the French minister for health, Simone Veil, rose to address the national assembly and to propose a law legalising abortion. For the next three days, she fought a tremendous battle under the eye of the media. Outside the assembly, “Let them live” campaigners distributed leaflets containing terrible illustrations, and a number of women, led by a priest, walked in procession reciting prayers.

 

The measure was the most controversial in France for many years, and the situation politically complicated. Within the government, the prime minister, Jacques Chirac, was not in favour of the projected law, and the minister for justice, who was absent from the assembly, had pronounced that, for him, “abortion means death”. The president of the republic, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, had insisted on the law, but not succeeded in persuading his followers. The project was passed only because the opposition endorsed it. This was considered a triumph for Veil, who has died aged 89, and, despite her protests, the law became widely known as “la loi Veil”.

 

In 1950, Veil was at a reception given by the French consulate in Mainz, Germany. She bore the Auschwitz camp number that the Germans had tattooed on her arm, and a French diplomat, seeing this, frivolously asked if it was her cloakroom number. Veil burst into tears. She always struggled against the reluctance of people to believe that the Jews had been persecuted by the Germans and by the French simply because they were Jews.

 

 

 

https://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21724776-french-stateswoman-was-89-obituary-simone-veil-died-june-30th

 

"She will be interred alongside Victor Hugo, Voltaire and Emile Zola in the Paris Pantheon. Her previous great honour was to become a member - one of five women among 40 - of the Academie Francaise, guardian of the language's purity and precision. On appointment, each "immortal" is given a ceremonial sword. Hers bore two mottos: the French Republic's Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite and the European Union's Unie dans la diversite. The third engraving was the number from her arm: 78651.

[marylander1940]

She died on June 30th, but I just read about it. What a lifetime of inspiration.

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/30/simone-veil-obituary

 

In November 1974, the French minister for health, Simone Veil, rose to address the national assembly and to propose a law legalising abortion. For the next three days, she fought a tremendous battle under the eye of the media. Outside the assembly, “Let them live” campaigners distributed leaflets containing terrible illustrations, and a number of women, led by a priest, walked in procession reciting prayers.

 

The measure was the most controversial in France for many years, and the situation politically complicated. Within the government, the prime minister, Jacques Chirac, was not in favour of the projected law, and the minister for justice, who was absent from the assembly, had pronounced that, for him, “abortion means death”. The president of the republic, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, had insisted on the law, but not succeeded in persuading his followers. The project was passed only because the opposition endorsed it. This was considered a triumph for Veil, who has died aged 89, and, despite her protests, the law became widely known as “la loi Veil”.

 

In 1950, Veil was at a reception given by the French consulate in Mainz, Germany. She bore the Auschwitz camp number that the Germans had tattooed on her arm, and a French diplomat, seeing this, frivolously asked if it was her cloakroom number. Veil burst into tears. She always struggled against the reluctance of people to believe that the Jews had been persecuted by the Germans and by the French simply because they were Jews.

 

 

 

https://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21724776-french-stateswoman-was-89-obituary-simone-veil-died-june-30th

 

"She will be interred alongside Victor Hugo, Voltaire and Emile Zola in the Paris Pantheon. Her previous great honour was to become a member - one of five women among 40 - of the Academie Francaise, guardian of the language's purity and precision. On appointment, each "immortal" is given a ceremonial sword. Hers bore two mottos: the French Republic's Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite and the European Union's Unie dans la diversite. The third engraving was the number from her arm: 78651.

 

@stevenkesslar very touchy! Thank you for posting!

 

Her husband will be disinterred and buried with her too.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panth%C3%A9on

[liubit]

She certainly was an extraordinary woman who lived an extraordinary life and accomplished extraordinary feats. France owes a big debt to her. May she rest in peace.

[Bearofdistinction]

She certainly was an extraordinary woman who lived an extraordinary life and accomplished extraordinary feats. France owes a big debt to her. May she rest in peace.

 

Pretty amazing!

[+ purplekow]

Living in NYC in the 60's it was not unusual to see people with number tattoos. As a child it was explained to me what those numbers represented and after that, it saddened me each and every time I saw someone with them. It is unbelievable that there are Holocaust doubters now, but it is inexplicable that there would have been doubters in France in the 50's.

[+ stevenkesslar]

It is unbelievable that there are Holocaust doubters now, but it is inexplicable that there would have been doubters in France in the 50's.

 

Watch The Sorrow and The Pity, if you haven't.

 

For those who argue that liberal arts educations are bullshit unless you get a STEM degree, there's this. I saw the film in college, at a liberal arts college, and afterwards there was a lecture and Q and A and reception with Marcel Ophuls himself. It was one of those events that seared on to my conscience, because I knew about Naziism, but not about French collaboration with Nazis.

 

But the striking thing about the movie was how much injustice can occur when decent people decide to just look the other way. Like what is happening with millions of refugees right now. Today.

 

 

The other thing I did not know, that I only learned a decade or so ago on my first trip to Berlin, was the enormous number of German leftists that were slaughtered by the Nazis as they took over and consolidated their control. Many of them were Communists and socialists. If you resisted, you had to understand you could be killed. I knew that in principle from the movie Julia, which I also saw in college. But I did not learn the extent of the German resistance until later.