Stéphane Hessel
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Stéphane Frédéric Hessel (born 20 October 1917) is a diplomat, former ambassador, and French resistance fighter and BCRA agent. Born German, he obtained French nationality in 1937. He participated in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.
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[edit] Biography
Hessel was born in Berlin to Helen Grund and of the German writer Franz Hessel who inspired the character of Jules in novel Henri-Pierre Roche's novel Jules and Jim.
Having graduated the Abitur (A-level)[citation needed] when 15 years old, he was received in 1937 at the French Ecole Normale Superieure and simultaneously naturalized as French citizen, before being mobilized in the French Army in 1939 in Saint-Maixent.
Resistant during the Second World War, Hessel joined General de Gaulle in 1941, was deported to Buchenwald and Dora concentration camps. Hessel escaped hanging in Dora and escaped with Forest Yeo-Thomas during a transfer to Bergen-Belsen by exchanging his identity with Michel Boitel, who was dying of typhus.
After the war, Stephane Hessel was involved in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.
In 1962 he created the AFTAM (Association for training in Africa and Madagascar), which he became president [4]. In 2008, AFTAM offers a 22 000 beds accommodation. In August 1982, he was appointed for 3 years, a member of the French High Authority of Audiovisual Communication, where he was especially charged of the case of private local radios. Stephane Hessel remains at the age of 90 years, Ambassador of France.
He is a member of the sponsorship of the French Coalition for the Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-violence.
Stéphane Hessel is also a founding member of the international ethical, political and scientific Collegium (or Collegium International).
In 2003, he signed with other former resistant, the petition "For a Treaty of social Europe" and in August 2006, an appeal against the Israeli strikes in Lebanon, published in French newspapers on behalf of the French Jewish union for peace.
Stéphane Hessel was raised to the dignity of Grand Officier de la Legion d'honneur (Decree of 14 July 2006) and the dignity of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit (Decree of 16 November 1999).
Stephane Hessel was a member of the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights and the High Council for International Cooperation.
In 2004, he was awarded the North-South Prize of the Council of Europe.
Stephane Hessel participated to the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Program of the National Council of Resistance of 15 March 1944. It particularly urged the young generations to live and retransmit the legacy of the resistance and its ideals of democracy always current economic, social and cultural.
On 21 February 2008 on the Place de la Republique in Paris, Stephane Hessel raised hise voice to denounce the non-compliance with Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the French government and called for the Government of the French Republic to make funds available in order to provide housing to the homeless.
At the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, on 10 December 2008, Hessel received the UNESCO/Bilbao Prize for the Promotion of a Culture of Human Rights.[1]
On 5 January 2009, Stéphane Hessel remarked about the Israeli military operations in the Gaza strip: « In fact, the word that applies - that should be applied - is war crime and even crime against humanity. But this word must be used cautiously, especially in Geneva, where the High Commissioner for Human Rights resides, who may have an important opinion on that issue. As for myself, after visiting Gaza, after seeing refugee camps with thousands of children, the way they are bombed appears as a real crime against humanity. »
[edit] Bibliography
- Danse avec le siècle (Dance with the century), his biography;
- Ô ma mémoire, la poésie, ma nécessité (Oh my memory, poetry, my need), a poetry book;
- Citoyen du monde (Citizen of the World), a book of interviews.
[edit] References and footnotes
- ^ "Stéphane Hessel to receive UNESCO/Bilbao Prize". http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=44186&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html. Retrieved on March 19 2009.
- http://www.denistouret.net/textes/Hessel.html [archive]
- http://www.irenees.net/fr/fiches/entretien/fiche-entretien-128.html [archive]
- This article incorporates information from the revision as of January 2008 of the equivalent article on the French Wikipedia.
[edit] External links
- (En) Universal Declaration of Human Rights, on the site of the United Nations [archive]
- (En) Call [archive] to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Program of the National Council of Resistance.
