Jean jacob simone veil biography

Simone Veil, DBE (born 13 July 1927) is a French lawyer and politician who served as Minister of Health under Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, President of the European Parliament and member of the Constitutional Council of France.

A survivor from the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp where she lost part of her family, she is the Honorary President of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah.

Jean jacob simone veil biography

She was elected to the Académie française in November 2008.

Early life

Veil was born Simone Annie Liline Jacob, the daughter of a Jewish architect in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France. In March 1944, Veil's family was deported, Simone, her mother and one sister to Auschwitz-Birkenau then Bergen-Belsen where her mother died shortly before the camp's 15 April 1945 liberation.

Veil's father and brother also died; they are last known to have been sent on a transport to Lithuania. Veil's other sister who had been arrested as a member of the Resistance survived her imp