Stéphane Hessel

Stéphane Hessel was born in Berlin, Germany in 1917. During World War II, he joined the resistance movement. In March 1944, he was on a mission to contact underground activists in Paris, but was captured and tortured by waterboarding. He survived by giving out false information and was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. He escaped hanging by exchanging identities with a French soldier who had died of typhoid fever. He was then sent to a different camp, where he managed to escape and return to Paris, which had by then been liberated. After the war, he became a diplomat, working as an official for the United Nations, where he participated in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted in 1948. He later held diplomatic posts in Algeria and Vietnam. He wrote or contributed to several books including Danse Avec le Siècle (Dance with the Century) and Indignez-Vous! (Time for Outrage!). He died on February 26, 2013 at the age of 95.