Marie-Hélène Lefaucheux

Marie-Hélène Lefaucheux (26 February 1904 – 25 February 1964) was a French women's and human rights activist. During World War II, she was a member of the French Resistance and orchestrated her husband's release from Buchenwald concentration camp after he was captured by the Gestapo. She was the sole woman in the French delegation to the first General Assembly of the United Nations. Lefaucheux helped found the UN's Commission on the Status of Women and was its chair from 1948 to 1953.

Biography

Early life and education Marie-Hélène Postel-Vinay was born on 26 February 1904 in Paris to Madeleine (née Delombre) and Marcel Postel-Vinay. She attended primary schools in Paris. She was one of the first two women to be admitted to the Ecole des Sciences Politiques and studied piano at École du Louvre. In 1925, she married industrialist and lawyer Pierre Lefaucheux,

French Resistance During World War II Pierre and Marie-Hélène Lefaucheux became important members of the French Resistance. Their apartment in Paris was a crossroads of the underground and headquarters for an organisation that prepared packages for political prisoners and their families. From Spring 1942, Lefaucheux was in contact with Yvonne Churn, who distributed books to prisons. They managed to establish a system of communication with Parisian inmates and relayed information to families of prisoners in secret detention facilities. Their system led to the creation of the Comité des œuvres sociales de la Résistance (COSOR). She served as Vice President of the Paris branch of the French Committee of National Liberation. Her husband went on to become Chair of the vehicle manufacturer Renault. She was designated by the National Assembly in 1946 to serve on the Council of the Republic. She remained on the Council of the Republic for only a session and resigned her office in 1947 to join the Assembly of the French Union. She was a Senator (MRP) under the Fourth Republic.

Upon her death, the International Council of Women noted:

Madame Lefaucheux had a statesmanlike brain, an indomitable fighting spirit for the advancement of women's education, rights and civil duties, a keen sense of strategy and tactics," adding "in her unceasing work for women of all races, as French Government representative on the United Nations Status of Women Commission, its delegate to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, and during her Presidency of the I.C.W., her achievements were outstanding.

Lefaucheux's role in the liberation of France and her rescue of her husband was alluded to in the 1966 film Is Paris Burning? The Foundation Marie-Hélène Lefaucheux was later established to help African women.