The library

Born in Gap, Yvonne Oddon was a leader in transforming French libraries. On the recommendation of David David-Weill, she was hired by Georges-Henri Rivière as the librarian for the Trocadero Ethnography Museum in 1929, while continuing to consult for libraries and holding responsibilities with the French librarian association.

She furthered her know-how in the United States thanks to a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and created lasting ties with the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution.

In 1937, the Trocadéro Museum of Ethnography became the Musée de l'Homme and moved to new premises. Yvonne Oddon intervened in the plans for the museum's library to impose American standards of library architecture and personally supervised the progress of the work. This classified library, open to the public, marked a turning point in the management of study libraries. A photo library was also set up at the Musée de l'Homme, bringing together photographic documentation classified by Yvonne Oddon and Thérèse Rivière.

The Resistance

In 1940, she was the first to engage in acts of resistance against the occupying forces. She initiated the creation of the resistance network known as the ‘Musée de l'Homme network’ with her colleagues Boris Vildé and Anatole Lewitsky, and helped choose the name of the newspaper ‘Résistance’. She frequented Germaine Tillion, who would visit the library to conduct research, where they would confide in each other about their secret activities.

Yvonne Oddon was arrested by the Gestapo in February 1941 at the same time as Anatole Lewitsky, after being denounced by two employees of the museum's technical services, Mrs Erouchkowski (known as Mrs Ski) and Mr Fedorowski (known as ‘Fédo’). She was sentenced to death and finally deported to the Ravensbrück camp.

Severely weakened by her imprisonment, Yvonne Oddon did not return to work at the Musée de l'Homme until 1946. She died in 1982.