I’ve always said I’m really fortunate not to have experienced first-hand the horrors of war, and I really hope I’ll never have to. However, many stories and experiences seem quite familiar to me after having listened to the stories of my grandfather and his brothers who did go through those events. During the Spanish Civil War, my great-grandfather was directly involved with the Republican side, fighting against Francisco Franco. Among the many stories of hunger and devastation they all experienced, there was one that always shocked me: the ways women were punished by the Nationalists or Francoist army. These conservative groups, as you can imagine were extremely religious and were absolutely supported by the Catholic Church.
One way to convince more and more people, in a mainly Catholic and quite religious country, was by claiming and spreading rumours about how people from the Republican side were against religious doctrines, but more importantly, how they engaged in depraved activities, such as engaging in free love. Based on those suppositions, whenever they captured Republican women, they treated them as prostitutes, and thus unworthy of any consideration or respect. And just as it was written in the Bible, they made others know of their sins and shame by shaving their heads like the Corinthian prostitutes. However, this wasn’t the only thing that shook me. My great-grand uncles, who lived in France for many years, also told me how, after being freed from the Nazi regime several people in cities and towns publicly shamed the women who helped the Germans by shaving their heads, among many different punishments.
These practices have existed for quite a long time and are rooted, as I mentioned, in ancient texts such as the Bible. Hair has always been a related to women’s femininity, and being stripped from it was a way of taking their identity from them. While conservative groups have been the ones engaging in these practices the most, in the case of France and other European countries like Belgium, Italy, Norway, and the Netherlands, the resistance groups were the ones who started these public shamings. Since the Liberation in 1944 to 1946, there are reports of over 20,000 women being accused of collaborating with the German regime. However, many historians believe the number was way higher, since there were approximately 80,000 babies born of German soldiers and French women.
Women weren’t only punished for actively collaborating with the invaders; even the slightest connection to them was a reason to suspect about them and punish them. The first women to be humilliated were prostitutes because they had sold their bodies to the Nazis during the occupation. However, even those who’d talked to them or had been falsely accused of doing so were publicly shamed in the main squares of the villages. At some point I can understand the anger of the people, but their reaction can also be a sadistic and brutish way of getting satisfaction. It’s natural that people would want revenge after all they went through, but still they were just looking for a scapegoat, no matter who it was. Thus, these practices became France’s way of “cleansing” their country.
These groups defined collaboration with the Nazis (or what they called collaboration horizontale) by dividing it into four main strands. The first one was naturally political. This included all the women who had worked directly with the Nazis, had provided information (even if they had been forced to do so), had shown some sort of support for the regime, or even just talked ill about the Resistance and the allied forces. Then there was the financial collaboration, which included all those women who had had direct commercial or financial deals with the Germans (again, this also included forced treatment like having to sell their products to the soldiers under the threat of being killed). The third was on a more personal level. All those who had had a certain type of relationship with Germans were accused of having collaborated with them (this included prostitutes, women employed in German households, or even those who had to befriend them to get something to eat). Finally, the fourth one was just mere suspicion. It didn’t matter if they didn’t have any sort of relationship with the Nazi soldiers. An accusation was enough.
These punishments didn’t only involve the shaving of their heads and the humiliation. They were also stoned, spat on, beaten, and even had swastikas painted on their foreheads. They really wanted to punish someone to show people they weren’t going to allow something like this to happen again. They believed they were setting a great example by telling others what would happen if they were on the wrong side. Sadly, this wasn’t something organized only by the Resistance. It’s been proven that those who were more eager to engage in these practices had actually been real collaborators pretending to be offended to cover their backs.
The thing is that even after the country was liberated, they were still under another occupation, that of the Allies. For some years American and British forces remained in the main cities of France. But they didn’t behave like protective allies. They were just happy the war ended, and this country became their playground to do whatever they wanted. It’s said that even some of these soldiers also joined these groups to shame women. Naturally, this episode in France’s history is barely discussed because it’s such an uncomfortable subject to deal with. Still, there are many photographs that tell this hard and shameful event.
For more iconic images of our history, take a look at these:
Rest And Then Come Rescue Me: The Tragic Story Behind This Iconic Image
Who Was Tank Man? Photographs To Remember China’s Bloody Massacre
Sebastião Salgado And The Importance Of Capturing Genocides On Film
