Jeanne L'Herminier
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Jeannette L'Herminier (15 October 1907 - 7 March 2007) was a
French Resistance The French Resistance ( ) was a collection of groups that fought the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Nazi occupation and the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#France, collaborationist Vic ...
fighter and deportee.


Life

She was born into a naval family at
Nouméa Nouméa () is the capital and largest city of the French Sui generis collectivity, special collectivity of New Caledonia and is also the largest Francophone city in Oceania. It is situated on a peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main i ...
and joined the Resistance around the time of the Vichy fleet scuttling itself at Toulon, which her naval officer brother escaped. On 19 September 1943 the
Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...
arrested her and her mother-in-law in Paris for hiding an American airman and belonging to the Buckmaster networks. Jeannette was deported in February 1944 to
Ravensbrück concentration camp Ravensbrück () was a Nazi concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel). The camp memorial's estimated figure of 1 ...
, a camp for women north of Berlin. There she began creating cut-out silhouettes of her fellow prisoners using scraps from newspapers and cardboard boxes recovered in the
Holýšov Holýšov (; ) is a town in Plzeň-South District in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 5,600 inhabitants. Administrative division Holýšov consists of two municipal parts (in brackets population according to the 2021 census): ...
Kommando A ''Kommando'' (, "unit" or "command") is a general term for special police and military forces in German, Dutch, and Afrikaans speaking nations. It was also the term in the World War II era ''Luftwaffe'' for special units used to test new a ...
, a munitions factory where she was a forced-labourer. To escape the horrors of the camp, she embellished her subjects to show them as they ought to be. She produced more than 150 works, created and saved thanks to often-dangerous assistance from the other prisoners, notably Elisabeth Barbier, who got most of the drawings out of Ravensbrück. She was made an officer of the
Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...
and awarded the
Croix de guerre 1939-1945 Croix (French for "cross") may refer to: Belgium * Croix-lez-Rouveroy, a village in municipality of Estinnes in the province of Hainaut France * Croix, Nord, in the Nord department * Croix, Territoire de Belfort, in the Territoire de Belfort depa ...
and the
Médaille de la Résistance The Resistance Medal (, ) was a decoration bestowed by the French Committee of National Liberation, based in the United Kingdom, during World War II. It was established by a decree of General Charles de Gaulle on 9 February 1943 "to recognize the ...
. After recovering most of these drawings post-war, in 1987 she gave them to the Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation in the
Citadelle de Besançon Citadelle, the French word for citadel, may refer to: *Citadel of Quebec or ''La Citadelle'', a military installation and government residence in Quebec City, Canada *Citadelle Laferrière or the Citadelle, a 19th-century fortress in Nord, Haiti * ...
and the
Musée de l'Ordre de la Libération The Musée de l'Ordre de la Libération () is a military museum located in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France. The museum is dedicated to the Ordre de la Libération, France's second national order after the Légion d'honneur, which was cre ...
in Paris, with the former mounting the first exhibition of them in Strasbourg in 2011, with 71 on show. She died in
Vanves Vanves () is a Communes of France, commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris. It is one of the most densely populated municipalities in Europe and the tenth in France. History On ...
.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lherminier category:People from Nouméa category:1907 births category:2007 deaths Ravensbrück concentration camp survivors category:French Resistance members Female resistance members of World War II Officers of the Legion of Honour Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France) Recipients of the Resistance Medal