The life of Simone Veil, can be compared to a fight, a constant militancy.
She was the mother of the women’s right, of the human right.
Madame Veil, maiden name Simone Jacob, was born in Nice, France in 1927 and was the youngest of four children.
Her adolescence was shaken by the Second World War. From a Jewish family, she is one of the numerous families deported to the Nazi concentration camps. She began her journey with her mother, her brother and her sister in Poland at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. She was then transferred to the camp in Bergen-Belsen where she worked in the kitchens. In 1945, she was liberated by the English allied troops; she was alone with her sister to survive the horror of the war.
Back in France, she married the politician Antoine Veil. With him she founded a family, and had three children.
It was in 1970 that she studied law and political science, thus becoming the General Secretariat of the High Council of the Judiciary. She began her political career in 1974 by being appointed several times as the Minister of Health.
According to the French journalist Laurent Delahousse in an interview for the French radio Europe1, Veil was not made for politics because at that time it was inconceivable to have women in politics. It was only after the magazine Marie Claire made a special publication of an imaginary cabinet for Prime Minister George Pompidou composed of only women that this idea began to take off. This gave Valéry Giscard d’Estaing the idea to insert this type of modernity into his government by including women in politics. Mrs Giscard d’Estaing include Simone Veil in his cabinet and her political career took off.
Naturally the change did not please everyone and many men were heckling the national assembly.
Veil fought for the controversial causes, such as contraception and abortion, which caused tension and anger from the far right party but also even from her own party.
In 1979 she was elected as the first female President of the European Parliament. She said: “I intend to devote my entire time and energies to the task before us. I am convinced that the pluralist nature of our assembly can serve to enrich our work and not act as a brake on the continuing construction of Europe.”
She fought her entire life for human rights and above all, women’s rights.
After her mandate, she pursued her political career with several mandates as Minister of State, Social Affairs and Health. She even became a member of the Constitutional Council.
She was invested in the duty of remembrance of the atrocities of the past. She was president of “La foundation de la mémoire de Shoah.”
She became a member of the Académie Française. In doing so, she received her traditional sword. She wanted to have her tattoo, her number of Auschwitz on her sword. This number was an integral part of her life and herself. The sword from the linguistic heritage of the French language, a symbol of freedom, was merged with Veil’s own personal symbol of remembrance.
She left us on Friday June 30 at 89 years. A page turns once more but like the adage says, the writings remain.
She will always remain a symbol of strength, the fight for freedom and of modernity, and will remain ingrained in our heritage and set an example for our future.