Yvonne Oddon (1902–1982)

Yvonne Oddon was born in the Hautes-Alpes to a French Protestant family. After graduation from secondary school, she spent a year as a lecturer in Wales. She then went to Paris to study library science and in 1926-1928 went on a training course in the USA on a Rockefeller Foundation grant. On her return to France in 1929, she became a librarian at the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro (later called the Musée de l'Homme) in Paris. She also began to work with the Council of Librarians and the Association of French Librarians. The book Guide du bibliothécaire amateur (Guide for the Amateur Librarian, 1930) published by Charles-Henri Bach, featured her name prominently. The text was revised and corrected and the book was re-named the Petit guide du bibliothécaire and re-published under the names of both authors in 1931; it became a standard work. Her efforts represented a turning point in the reform of library management in France. In 1940, following the German invasion of France, Yvonne Oddon joined Agnès Humbert, Anatole Lewitsky, Germaine Tillion, and others to establish the resistance group called the Groupe du Musée de l'Homme. Initially, it helped prisoners and aviators to escape the country. She also worked with Boris Vildé on the clandestine newspaper Résistance. In February 1941, nine participants of the group were arrested and the six men were sentenced to death. The three women, including Yvonne Oddon, were deported to Germany. She went to several prisons before being sent to the concentration camp at Ravensbrück in 1944. She survived and was able to return to Paris. After the war, Yvonne Oddon continued her work at the Musée de l'Homme, and took part in numerous missions for UNESCO. She helped organize educational conferences and participated in the creation of the International Council of Museums, for which she made a classification system. She was awarded the Légion d'honneur for her resistance work.