Simone Veil, a French holocaust survivor and rights icon, who passed away last week aged 89 was no ordinary woman. As a mark of respect, French President Emmanuel Macron said she would receive the rare honour of being laid to rest in the Pantheon
Buried alongside Curie and Voltaire
Veil will become only the fifth woman to be laid to rest in the Paris monument, which houses the remains of great national figures, according to AFP. Other luminaries buried in the secular mausoleum are Polish-born French scientist Marie Curie and writers Voltaire, Victor Hugo and Emile Zola
Holocaust survivor
Born Simone Jacob in Nice on July 13, 1927, Veil was arrested by the Gestapo in March 1944 and deported to Auschwitz with one of her sisters and her mother
She survived the concentration camps but lost her mother, father and brother. “Sixty years later I am still haunted by the images, the odours, the cries, the humiliation, the blows and the sky filled with the smoke of the crematoriums,” she said
Legalised abortion
Then she went on to become an indefatigable crusader for women’s rights and European reconciliation. As the French minister for health, Veil in 1974, rose to address the national Assembly propose a law legalising abortion—in the face of fierce opposition, according to the Guardian. Veil led the charge in the Assembly, where she braved a volley of insults, some of them likening abortions to the Nazis’ treatment of Jews
Loi Veil
Today, the legislation named the Loi Veil (Veil Law), is considered a cornerstone of women’s rights and secularism in France. In 1979, she became the first elected president of the European Parliament