As a witness to the best and the worst of the twentieth century, the former resistant, French diplomat, specialist in international law and human rights, Stéphane Hessel came to Luxembourg on the invitation of the Committee of Peace in the Middle East and of the Abbey of Neumünster Cultural Exchange Center for an encounter based on the theme / title of his work “Indignez-vous”.  During this encounter, which was attended by 500 persons among which were the Grand Duke Heir, he held a dialogue with, in turn, Claude Frisoni, the director of the CCRN, Professor Simone Beck, and students of the 2^nd International of the Athenaeum of Luxembourg on the subject of the challenges present in our society, and the many different ways in which each man and woman can be a citizen who is alert, indignant, critical and committed.  The entire encounter may be heard again below.

Stéphane Hessel was born in 1917 in Berlin.  He arrived in Paris in 1924, became a French citizen in 1937, was normale in 1939 and chose de Gaulle and the Resistance.  Arrested in July 1944, he was deported to Buchenwald then to Dora.  After the War, Hessel entered the brand-new UN as a Diplomat.  Within this structure he was able to find the means to participate in the construction of a new world and he worked on the creation of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Stéphane Hessel, who took part in all of the great moments of international life, ended his carreer as Ambassador of France in 1981.

A man of conviction and of feeling, Stephane Hessel is a mediator, one who attempts to trust in the future.  But he also calls for a “peaceful uprising” as there exist more and more reasons to be indignant and that “today (his) main indignation concerns Palestine, the Gaza strip, the West Bank”.