12 Facts About Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier survived the war and became a Communist politician, elected to Parliament under the Fourth and Fifth Republic.

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier joined the Association des Ecrivains et Artistes Revolutionnaires and in 1934 the Mouvement Jeunes Communistes de France, the Communist Youth Movement of France, as well as in 1936, the Union of the Girls of France.

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier became a photographer for L'Humanite, which she later took over, and got to know Gabriel Peri and Georges Cogniot.

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier reported for Regards, in particular on the International Brigades.

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier participated in the Resistance and helped produce clandestine publications, including leaflets such as: l'Universite Libre ; Georges Politzer's pamphlet Sang et Or which presented the theses of the Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg ; and a clandestine edition of L'Humanite with Pierre Villon.

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier was arrested in a trap laid by French police on February 9,1942 with other Resistance activists, including Jacques Decour, Georges Politzer, Jacques Solomon, and Arthur Dallidet, all of whom were shot by the Nazis at Fort Mont-Valerien.

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier was in Auschwitz for 18 months, where she witnessed the genocide of the Jews and the Gypsies and took part in the international clandestine resistance committee of the camp.

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier was then transferred to the Ravensbruck concentration camp in August 1944.

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier twice was vice-president of the French National Assembly, from 1956 to 1958 and 1967 to 1968, and later became its honorary vice-president.

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier notably wrote legislative bills for wage equality between men and women, and was allied with the peace movement.

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier was one of the first presenters of l'Amicale d'Auschwitz.

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier filed suit against these accusations and in the lawsuit against Rassinier the charges were found to be proven.