Ève Curie
Encyclopedia
Ève Denise Curie Labouisse (December 6, 1904 – October 22, 2007) was a French-American writer, journalist and pianist. Ève Curie was the younger daughter of Marie Curie
and Pierre Curie
. Her sister was Irène Joliot-Curie
and her brother-in-law Frédéric Joliot-Curie
. Ève was the only member of her family who did not choose a career as a scientist and did not win a Nobel Prize, although her husband Henry Richardson Labouisse, Jr.
did collect the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 on behalf of UNICEF. She worked as a journalist and authored her mother's biography Madame Curie and a book of war reportage, Journey Among Warriors
. From the 1960s she committed herself to work for UNICEF, providing help to children and mothers in developing countries.
with her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie
in 1935), Ève showed more artistic and literary interests. Even as a child she displayed a particular talent for music.
Marie Curie also took care of the physical development of the girls. Whatever the weather, they went on long walks and rode on bikes. They went swimming in summer, and Marie had gymnastics equipment installed in the garden of their house in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine
. Ève and Irène also learned sewing, gardening and cooking.
Although the girls were French nationals (Ève became later an American citizen), and their first language was French, they were familiar with their Polish origin and spoke Polish. In 1911 they visited Poland, which was then under Russian rule. The main purpose of the visit was to visit with Bronisława Skłodowska, Marie's sister, who was staying in a sanatorium
at the time. During their visit to Poland, they also rode horses and hiked in the mountains.
to New York City. Marie Curie, as a two-time laureate of the Nobel Prize, the discoverer of radium
and polonium
, was welcomed there with all due ceremony; her daughters were also very popular with American high society. Radiant at parties and joyous, Ève was dubbed by the press "the girl with radium eyes". During the trip Ève and Irène also acted as their mother's "bodyguards" – Marie, usually focused on research work and preferring a simple life, did not always feel comfortable facing the homage paid to her. While in the United States, Marie, Irène and Ève met President Warren G. Harding
in Washington, D.C., saw the Niagara Falls
and went by train to see the Grand Canyon
. They returned to Paris in June 1921.
Ève, like her sister Irène, graduated from the Collège Sévigné
in Paris, where she obtained two bachelor's degrees, in Science and Philosophy, in 1925. Meanwhile, she also improved her piano skills and gave her first concert in Paris in 1925. Later, she performed on stage many times, giving concerts in the French capital, in the provinces and in Belgium
.
After Irène married Frédéric Joliot in 1926, Ève stayed with her mother in Paris, taking care of her and accompanying her on trips throughout France, Italy
, Belgium, and Switzerland
. In 1932, they also accompanied President of Czechoslovakia
Tomáš Masaryk on his trip to Spain.
Although she loved her mother, Ève had a quite different personality from her (and from her sister Irène). She was not interested in science, preferring the humanities
. Unlike her mother, she was always attracted by refined life. Whereas Marie usually wore simple, black dresses, Ève always cared about smart clothes, wore high-heeled shoes and make-up, and loved shining at parties. However, both Ève and Irène nursed her mother with devotion til her death. Marie, ill with aplastic anemia
, probably caused by her long-term exposure to radium, died on July 4, 1934.
After Marie Curie's death, Ève decided to give voice to her love for her by writing her biography. To this end, she temporarily withdrew from social life and moved to a small flat in Auteuil, Yvelines
, where she gathered and sorted out documents and letters left by Marie. In autumn 1935, she also visited her family in Poland, looking for information about her mother's childhood and youth. The fruit of this work was the biography Madame Curie, simultaneously published in France, Britain, Italy, Spain, the United States and other countries in 1937.
The biography became highly popular instantly upon its publication; in many countries (including the United States) it was a bestseller. The book won the 1937 National Book Award
for Fiction, and was adapted for the silver screen in 1943 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
, with Greer Garson
in the title role.
In later years, however, Marie Curie's biography often met with criticism of science historians, who accused Ève of presenting her mother in an over-sentimental way and failing to mention, for example, Marie's love affair with Paul Langevin
, her husband's former student. Langevin was a married man and a father of four; their relationship, established after Pierre Curie's death, caused a great scandal in early twentieth century France. Ève was also accused of not presenting all the troubles and insults her mother had to suffer from French scientific circles and the gutter press.
Ève became more and more engaged in literary and journalistic work. Apart from her mother's biography, she published musical reviews in the Candide
weekly and articles on theatre, music and film in other Paris newspapers.
, who had become the French Information Commissioner (Commissaire général à l'information) in the same year, appointed Ève Curie head of the feminine division in his office. After Germany invaded France, Ève left Paris on June 11, 1940, and after the surrender of France she fled with other refugees on board an overcrowded ship to England, which was strafed by German aircraft. There she joined the Free French Forces
of General Charles de Gaulle
and started her active fight against Nazism
, which resulted in the Vichy
government's depriving her of French nationality and confiscating her property in 1941.
Ève Curie spent most of the war years in Britain, where she met Winston Churchill
, and the United States, where she gave lectures and wrote articles to American newspapers (mostly the New York Herald Tribune
. In 1940 she met Eleanor Roosevelt
at the White House
. Inspired by this visit, she later gave a series of lectures on French Women and the War; in May 1940 The Atlantic Monthly published her essay under the same title.
From November 1941 to April 1942, Ève Curie traveled as a war correspondent to Africa, the Soviet Union
and Asia, where she witnessed the British offensive in Egypt
and Libya
in December 1941 and the Soviet counter-offensive at Moscow
in January 1942. During this journey she met the Shah
of Iran
, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
, the leader of Free China
, Chiang Kai-shek
, fighting the Japanese, and Mahatma Gandhi. Several times she had the opportunity to meet her half-compatriots, Polish soldiers
, who fought on the side of the British or organized the Polish Army in the Soviet Union
.
Curie's reports from this journey were published in American newspapers, and in 1943 they were gathered in the book Journey Among Warriors
, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Correspondence
in 1944 (eventually losing to Ernest Taylor Pyle
) An article in the Autumn 1943 issue of The Russian Review
critiqued Curie's book. The reviewer, Michael Karpovich, complimented her enthusiastic and sympathetic style of writing about people she met and interviewed in the Soviet Union
. However, Karpovich felt that Curie did
not characterize believably the Russians she described. In Journey Among Warriors she wrote about her conversations with a Greek Orthodox bishop, a noted ballerina, a Red Army
general, factory workers, local communist leaders, and scientists. Karpovich thought that Curie's exhuberance distorted both her judgment and her vision, in her book.
After her return to Europe, Ève Curie served as a volunteer in the women's medical corps of the Free French during the Italian Campaign
, where she was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in the 1st Armored Division
. In August 1944 she took part in landing with her troops in Provence
in southern France. She was decorated with the Croix de guerre
for her services.
, the first Secretary General of NATO
. On 19 November 1954 she married the American politician and diplomat Henry Richardson Labouisse, Jr.
, who served as the United States Ambassador to Greece
from 1962 to 1965. Ève Curie became an American citizen in 1958.
offered him the position of the Executive Director
of the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF. Labouisse held this office till 1979, actively supported by his wife, who also worked for the organization and was often called "the First Lady of UNICEF". Together, they visited more than 100 countries, mostly in the Third World
, which were beneficiaries of UNICEF's help. In 1965, Labouisse, accompanied by his wife, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize
, which was awarded to his organization.
In December 2004, Ève Curie celebrated her one-hundredth birthday. On this occasion, she was visited in her New York flat by the Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan
. She also received congratulatory letters from the presidents of the United States – George W. Bush
– and France – Jacques Chirac
.
In July 2005, Ève Curie Labouisse was promoted for her work in UNICEF to the rank of ‘Officier de la Légion d’Honneur’
of the Republic of France - the country’s highest decoration. She expressed thanks for the decoration, saying:
She sometimes joked that she brought shame on her family. "There were five Nobel Prizes in my family," she joked, "two for my mother, one for my father, one for [my] sister and brother-in-law and one for my husband. Only I was not successful…".
Ève Curie died in her sleep on 22 October 2007 in her residence on Sutton Place
in Manhattan
, aged 102.
Ann Veneman
, the Executive Director of UNICEF, said after her death:
Marie Curie
Marie Skłodowska-Curie was a physicist and chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes—in physics and chemistry...
and Pierre Curie
Pierre Curie
Pierre Curie was a French physicist, a pioneer in crystallography, magnetism, piezoelectricity and radioactivity, and Nobel laureate. He was the son of Dr. Eugène Curie and Sophie-Claire Depouilly Curie ...
. Her sister was Irène Joliot-Curie
Irène Joliot-Curie
Irène Joliot-Curie was a French scientist, the daughter of Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie and the wife of Frédéric Joliot-Curie. Jointly with her husband, Joliot-Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1935 for their discovery of artificial radioactivity. This made the Curies...
and her brother-in-law Frédéric Joliot-Curie
Frédéric Joliot-Curie
Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie , born Jean Frédéric Joliot, was a French physicist and Nobel laureate.-Early years:...
. Ève was the only member of her family who did not choose a career as a scientist and did not win a Nobel Prize, although her husband Henry Richardson Labouisse, Jr.
Henry Richardson Labouisse, Jr.
Henry Richardson Labouisse, Jr. was an American diplomat and statesman. He was the third Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East from 1954 to 1958. He was the director of the United Nations Children's Fund for fifteen years...
did collect the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 on behalf of UNICEF. She worked as a journalist and authored her mother's biography Madame Curie and a book of war reportage, Journey Among Warriors
Journey Among Warriors
Journey Among Warriors is a book of war reportage by the French-American journalist and writer Ève Curie, first published in 1943, in which the author described her experiences during her trip to Africa, the Near East, Soviet Union, China, Burma and India, where she traveled from November 1941 to...
. From the 1960s she committed herself to work for UNICEF, providing help to children and mothers in developing countries.
Childhood
Ève Denise Curie was born in Paris, France on December 6, 1904. She was the younger daughter of the scientists Marie and Pierre Curie, who also had another daughter Irène (born 1897). Ève virtually did not know her father, who died in 1906 in an accident, run over by a horse cart. After this accident, Marie Curie and her daughters were supported for some time by their paternal grandfather Dr. Eugène Curie. When he died in 1910, Marie Curie was forced to bring up her daughters herself with the help of governesses. Even though Ève confessed later that as a child she had suffered from a lack of sufficient attention of her mother and that only later, in her teens, she developed a stronger emotional bond to her, Marie took great care for the education and development of interests of both her daughters. Whereas Irène followed in her mother's footsteps and became an eminent scientist (she was awarded the Nobel Prize in ChemistryNobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
with her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie
Frédéric Joliot-Curie
Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie , born Jean Frédéric Joliot, was a French physicist and Nobel laureate.-Early years:...
in 1935), Ève showed more artistic and literary interests. Even as a child she displayed a particular talent for music.
Marie Curie also took care of the physical development of the girls. Whatever the weather, they went on long walks and rode on bikes. They went swimming in summer, and Marie had gymnastics equipment installed in the garden of their house in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine
Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine
Sceaux is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-Wealth:Sceaux is famous for the Château of Sceaux, set in its large park , designed by André Le Nôtre, measuring...
. Ève and Irène also learned sewing, gardening and cooking.
Although the girls were French nationals (Ève became later an American citizen), and their first language was French, they were familiar with their Polish origin and spoke Polish. In 1911 they visited Poland, which was then under Russian rule. The main purpose of the visit was to visit with Bronisława Skłodowska, Marie's sister, who was staying in a sanatorium
Sanatorium
A sanatorium is a medical facility for long-term illness, most typically associated with treatment of tuberculosis before antibiotics...
at the time. During their visit to Poland, they also rode horses and hiked in the mountains.
Youth
In 1921, 16-year-old Ève set off on her first journey across the Atlantic Ocean: that spring, she sailed with her sister and mother on board the ship RMS OlympicRMS Olympic
RMS Olympic was the lead ship of the Olympic-class ocean liners built for the White Star Line, which also included Titanic and Britannic...
to New York City. Marie Curie, as a two-time laureate of the Nobel Prize, the discoverer of radium
Radium
Radium is a chemical element with atomic number 88, represented by the symbol Ra. Radium is an almost pure-white alkaline earth metal, but it readily oxidizes on exposure to air, becoming black in color. All isotopes of radium are highly radioactive, with the most stable isotope being radium-226,...
and polonium
Polonium
Polonium is a chemical element with the symbol Po and atomic number 84, discovered in 1898 by Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie. A rare and highly radioactive element, polonium is chemically similar to bismuth and tellurium, and it occurs in uranium ores. Polonium has been studied for...
, was welcomed there with all due ceremony; her daughters were also very popular with American high society. Radiant at parties and joyous, Ève was dubbed by the press "the girl with radium eyes". During the trip Ève and Irène also acted as their mother's "bodyguards" – Marie, usually focused on research work and preferring a simple life, did not always feel comfortable facing the homage paid to her. While in the United States, Marie, Irène and Ève met President Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States . A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate , as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator...
in Washington, D.C., saw the Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls
The Niagara Falls, located on the Niagara River draining Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, is the collective name for the Horseshoe Falls and the adjacent American Falls along with the comparatively small Bridal Veil Falls, which combined form the highest flow rate of any waterfalls in the world and has...
and went by train to see the Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park, the 15th national park in the United States...
. They returned to Paris in June 1921.
Ève, like her sister Irène, graduated from the Collège Sévigné
Collège Sévigné
The Collège Sévigné is a French non-denominational private school.It is ranked 2nd in the city and 19th in the country by a french weekly magazine....
in Paris, where she obtained two bachelor's degrees, in Science and Philosophy, in 1925. Meanwhile, she also improved her piano skills and gave her first concert in Paris in 1925. Later, she performed on stage many times, giving concerts in the French capital, in the provinces and in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
.
After Irène married Frédéric Joliot in 1926, Ève stayed with her mother in Paris, taking care of her and accompanying her on trips throughout France, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Belgium, and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. In 1932, they also accompanied President of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
Tomáš Masaryk on his trip to Spain.
Although she loved her mother, Ève had a quite different personality from her (and from her sister Irène). She was not interested in science, preferring the humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
. Unlike her mother, she was always attracted by refined life. Whereas Marie usually wore simple, black dresses, Ève always cared about smart clothes, wore high-heeled shoes and make-up, and loved shining at parties. However, both Ève and Irène nursed her mother with devotion til her death. Marie, ill with aplastic anemia
Aplastic anemia
Aplastic anemia is a condition where bone marrow does not produce sufficient new cells to replenish blood cells. The condition, per its name, involves both aplasia and anemia...
, probably caused by her long-term exposure to radium, died on July 4, 1934.
Mother's biography
Auteuil, Yvelines
Auteuil is a commune in the Yvelines department in north-central France.-References:*...
, where she gathered and sorted out documents and letters left by Marie. In autumn 1935, she also visited her family in Poland, looking for information about her mother's childhood and youth. The fruit of this work was the biography Madame Curie, simultaneously published in France, Britain, Italy, Spain, the United States and other countries in 1937.
The biography became highly popular instantly upon its publication; in many countries (including the United States) it was a bestseller. The book won the 1937 National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
for Fiction, and was adapted for the silver screen in 1943 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
, with Greer Garson
Greer Garson
Greer Garson, CBE was a British-born actress who was very popular during World War II, being listed by the Motion Picture Herald as one of America's top ten box office draws in 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946. As one of MGM's major stars of the 1940s, Garson received seven Academy Award...
in the title role.
In later years, however, Marie Curie's biography often met with criticism of science historians, who accused Ève of presenting her mother in an over-sentimental way and failing to mention, for example, Marie's love affair with Paul Langevin
Paul Langevin
Paul Langevin was a prominent French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. He was one of the founders of the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes, an antifascist organization created in the wake of the 6 February 1934 far right riots...
, her husband's former student. Langevin was a married man and a father of four; their relationship, established after Pierre Curie's death, caused a great scandal in early twentieth century France. Ève was also accused of not presenting all the troubles and insults her mother had to suffer from French scientific circles and the gutter press.
Ève became more and more engaged in literary and journalistic work. Apart from her mother's biography, she published musical reviews in the Candide
Candide (newspaper)
-Blanquist Candide:Candide was a newspaper founded by Gustave Tridon and Auguste Blanqui on 3 May 1865. It appeared on Wednesday and Saturday every week, and cost 5 centimes...
weekly and articles on theatre, music and film in other Paris newspapers.
Second World War
After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the novelist and playwright Jean GiraudouxJean Giraudoux
Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II. His work is noted for its stylistic elegance and poetic fantasy...
, who had become the French Information Commissioner (Commissaire général à l'information) in the same year, appointed Ève Curie head of the feminine division in his office. After Germany invaded France, Ève left Paris on June 11, 1940, and after the surrender of France she fled with other refugees on board an overcrowded ship to England, which was strafed by German aircraft. There she joined the Free French Forces
Free French Forces
The Free French Forces were French partisans in World War II who decided to continue fighting against the forces of the Axis powers after the surrender of France and subsequent German occupation and, in the case of Vichy France, collaboration with the Germans.-Definition:In many sources, Free...
of General Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
and started her active fight against Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, which resulted in the Vichy
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
government's depriving her of French nationality and confiscating her property in 1941.
Ève Curie spent most of the war years in Britain, where she met Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, and the United States, where she gave lectures and wrote articles to American newspapers (mostly the New York Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
. In 1940 she met Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
at the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
. Inspired by this visit, she later gave a series of lectures on French Women and the War; in May 1940 The Atlantic Monthly published her essay under the same title.
From November 1941 to April 1942, Ève Curie traveled as a war correspondent to Africa, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and Asia, where she witnessed the British offensive in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
in December 1941 and the Soviet counter-offensive at Moscow
Battle of Moscow
The Battle of Moscow is the name given by Soviet historians to two periods of strategically significant fighting on a sector of the Eastern Front during World War II. It took place between October 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort frustrated Hitler's attack on Moscow, capital of...
in January 1942. During this journey she met the Shah
Shah
Shāh is the title of the ruler of certain Southwest Asian and Central Asian countries, especially Persia , and derives from the Persian word shah, meaning "king".-History:...
of Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
, the leader of Free China
Free China (Second Sino-Japanese War)
The term Free China, in the context of the Second Sino-Japanese War, refers to those areas of China not under the control of the Imperial Japanese Army or any of its puppet governments, such as Manchukuo, the Mengjiang government in Suiyuan and Chahar, or the Provisional Government of the Republic...
, Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
, fighting the Japanese, and Mahatma Gandhi. Several times she had the opportunity to meet her half-compatriots, Polish soldiers
Polish Armed Forces in the West
Polish Armed Forces in the West refers to the Polish military formations formed to fight alongside the Western Allies against Nazi Germany and its allies...
, who fought on the side of the British or organized the Polish Army in the Soviet Union
Polish Armed Forces in the East
Polish Armed Forces in the East refers to military units composed of Poles created in the Soviet Union at the time when the territory of Poland was occupied by both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the Second World War....
.
Curie's reports from this journey were published in American newspapers, and in 1943 they were gathered in the book Journey Among Warriors
Journey Among Warriors
Journey Among Warriors is a book of war reportage by the French-American journalist and writer Ève Curie, first published in 1943, in which the author described her experiences during her trip to Africa, the Near East, Soviet Union, China, Burma and India, where she traveled from November 1941 to...
, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Correspondence
Pulitzer Prize for Correspondence
The Pulitzer Prize for Correspondence was awarded from 1929 to 1947.-Winners:*1929: Paul Scott Mowrer of the Chicago Daily News, for his coverage of international affairs including the Franco-British Naval Pact and Germany's campaign for revision of the Dawes Plan.*1930: Leland Stowe of New York...
in 1944 (eventually losing to Ernest Taylor Pyle
Ernie Pyle
Ernest Taylor Pyle was an American journalist who wrote as a roving correspondent for the Scripps Howard newspaper chain from 1935 until his death in combat during World War II. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1944...
) An article in the Autumn 1943 issue of The Russian Review
The Russian Review
The Russian Review is a major independent peer-reviewed multi-disciplinary academic journal devoted to the history, literature, culture, fine arts, cinema, society, and politics of the Russian Federation, former Soviet Union and former Russian Empire. The journal was established in 1941 and is...
critiqued Curie's book. The reviewer, Michael Karpovich, complimented her enthusiastic and sympathetic style of writing about people she met and interviewed in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. However, Karpovich felt that Curie did
not characterize believably the Russians she described. In Journey Among Warriors she wrote about her conversations with a Greek Orthodox bishop, a noted ballerina, a Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
general, factory workers, local communist leaders, and scientists. Karpovich thought that Curie's exhuberance distorted both her judgment and her vision, in her book.
After her return to Europe, Ève Curie served as a volunteer in the women's medical corps of the Free French during the Italian Campaign
Italian Campaign (World War II)
The Italian Campaign of World War II was the name of Allied operations in and around Italy, from 1943 to the end of the war in Europe. Joint Allied Forces Headquarters AFHQ was operationally responsible for all Allied land forces in the Mediterranean theatre, and it planned and commanded the...
, where she was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in the 1st Armored Division
1st Armored Division (France)
The 1st Armored Division was an armored unit of the French Army. The division fought during World War II as a part of the First French Army and was active during the Cold War...
. In August 1944 she took part in landing with her troops in Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
in southern France. She was decorated with the Croix de guerre
Croix de guerre
The Croix de guerre is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was awarded during World War I, again in World War II, and in other conflicts...
for her services.
After the war
After the liberation of France, Ève Curie first worked as a co-editor of the daily newspaper Paris-Presse from 1944 to 1949, but was also active in the political sphere. For example, she was responsible for women's affairs in de Gaulle's government, and in 1948 along with other prominent European intellectuals, she appealed to the United Nations for recognition of the state of Israel. In the years 1952-1954, she was a special advisor to Hastings Lionel IsmayHastings Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay
General Hastings Lionel "Pug" Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay, KG, GCB, CH, DSO, PC was a British Indian Army officer and diplomat, remembered primarily for his role as Winston Churchill's chief military assistant during the Second World War and his service as the first Secretary General of NATO from 1952...
, the first Secretary General of NATO
Secretary General of NATO
The Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is the chairman of the North Atlantic Council, the supreme decision-making organisation of the defence alliance. The Secretary-General also serves as the leader of the organisation's staff and as its chief spokesman...
. On 19 November 1954 she married the American politician and diplomat Henry Richardson Labouisse, Jr.
Henry Richardson Labouisse, Jr.
Henry Richardson Labouisse, Jr. was an American diplomat and statesman. He was the third Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East from 1954 to 1958. He was the director of the United Nations Children's Fund for fifteen years...
, who served as the United States Ambassador to Greece
United States Ambassador to Greece
This is a list of ambassadors from the United States to Greece.*Charles Keating Tuckerman *John M. Francis *John M. Read, Jr. *John M. Read, Jr....
from 1962 to 1965. Ève Curie became an American citizen in 1958.
Work for UNICEF
In 1965, Ève's husband gave up his job in the U.S. government when the Secretary General of the United Nations U ThantU Thant
U Thant was a Burmese diplomat and the third Secretary-General of the United Nations, from 1961 to 1971. He was chosen for the post when his predecessor, Dag Hammarskjöld, died in September 1961....
offered him the position of the Executive Director
Executive director
Executive director is a term sometimes applied to the chief executive officer or managing director of an organization, company, or corporation. It is widely used in North American non-profit organizations, though in recent decades many U.S. nonprofits have adopted the title "President/CEO"...
of the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF. Labouisse held this office till 1979, actively supported by his wife, who also worked for the organization and was often called "the First Lady of UNICEF". Together, they visited more than 100 countries, mostly in the Third World
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
, which were beneficiaries of UNICEF's help. In 1965, Labouisse, accompanied by his wife, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
, which was awarded to his organization.
Last years of life
After her husband's death in 1987, Ève lived in New York City. She had no children from her marriage to Henry Labouisse, and was only visited by her stepdaughter, Anne Peretz (Labouisse's only daughter, born of his first marriage).In December 2004, Ève Curie celebrated her one-hundredth birthday. On this occasion, she was visited in her New York flat by the Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
. She also received congratulatory letters from the presidents of the United States – George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
– and France – Jacques Chirac
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...
.
In July 2005, Ève Curie Labouisse was promoted for her work in UNICEF to the rank of ‘Officier de la Légion d’Honneur’
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
of the Republic of France - the country’s highest decoration. She expressed thanks for the decoration, saying:
She sometimes joked that she brought shame on her family. "There were five Nobel Prizes in my family," she joked, "two for my mother, one for my father, one for [my] sister and brother-in-law and one for my husband. Only I was not successful…".
Ève Curie died in her sleep on 22 October 2007 in her residence on Sutton Place
Sutton Place
Sutton Place may refer to:* Sutton Place Hotel, a luxury brand of hotel properties based in North America* Sutton Place, Surrey, an estate* Sutton Place, Hackney, Georgian terrace* Sutton Place, Manhattan, a neighborhood and street in New York City...
in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, aged 102.
Ann Veneman
Ann Veneman
Ann Margaret Veneman is the former Executive Director of UNICEF, a position she held from 2005 to 2010. Her appointment was announced on January 18, 2005 by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Previously, Veneman was the United States Secretary of Agriculture, the first and only woman to hold that...
, the Executive Director of UNICEF, said after her death: