Émilie Tillion

Émilie Tillion (née Cussac; 20 February 1876 – 2 March 1945) was a French writer and art critic. Tillion is known for her work on the popular "Les Guides Bleus" and as a member of French Resistance during the Second World War.

Tillion was the mother of Germaine Tillion, who was also a Resistance fighter and a noted ethnologist.

Biography Tillion was born Émilie Cussac on 20 February 1876 in Talizat commune to a wealthy family of landowners in Cantal. Her father, Francois Cussac, was a notary of Puy-de-Dôme, and her mother was Antoinette Vivier. The Cussac family had produced a line of hereditary mayors of their town prior to the French Revolution. Tillion, together with her husband, was the author of several tourist guidebooks in the Guides Bleus series, which is considered the oldest such publications in France. She was also a co-author of the Pays d'Europe volume.

Lucien Tillion died in 1925, leaving his wife to raise their two daughters, Germaine and Françoise, alone.

French Resistance

Tillion's daughter Germaine spent six years in Algeria, studying desert tribes. By October of the same year, Tillion was an active member of the French Resistance serving as a liaison between the writers and artists who were part of the movement.

Tillion and 958 other women were transported in cattle wagons. Upon meeting her at the camp, Tillion told Germaine, "Voyage exultant. Cologne, Düsseldorf, Elberfeld en ruines. La fin de la guerre est proche." (Great voyage. Cologne, Düsseldorf, Elberfeld in ruins. The end of the war is close.) She was sentenced to death by gas chamber after she was selected from a targeted block because of her white hair. It is said that her mother's murder inspired Germaine to write the three-act operetta, Le Verfügbar aux Enfers.