As the Allies advanced during the Second World War throughout Normandy,
many came across horrific scenes in which the French people were punishing their own.
Especially harrowing was the treatment of women who were accused of horizontal collaboration,
or sleeping with the Nazi and German enemy. Because of this, brutal acts of violence,
killing and shaming took place in many French towns, and because of this it became known as
‘The Ugly Carnival.’ Women were forced to run the gauntlet and experience terrifying
treatment including having their hair roughly shaven, and many were beaten. In some cases,
women were even killed at the hands of the men and crowds, and it’s estimated that thousands of
women were subject to this ordeal. Some were even covered in tar and were painted with swastikas.
But what is the story of this? Join us today as we look at the HORRIFIC Torture of the Women
of the Ugly Carnival. Remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
In every country which was occupied by different armies throughout the Second World War,
there was an element of collaboration. Many women inside of these lands may have simply
fallen in love with their occupiers, and many saw the soldiers as charming and exotic.
In Britain there were many women who later married former German and Italian Prisoners of War
following their internment inside of POW camps in England,
but in France fraternisation with the enemy especially as the war turned against the enemy
was harshly and strictly punished. In France there were around 200,000 babies
born to French mothers and German fathers, and wherever the German Army went this happened.
In Norway, 12,000 were born and on the Channel Islands the only part of Britain
that Hitler managed to invade, around 900 German fathered children were registered and were born.
It was just a matter of what happened during the Second World War,
there was also an element of assault in this, as many women were assaulted by occupying forces.
Famously this happened as the Soviet’s advanced towards Berlin and Germany,
giving rise to the notoriety and brutality of the Red Army. But as many Germans advanced and
captured large elements of France, the occupying forces made themselves comfortable and many then
started to date the local women. As mentioned many of these women embarked on relationships with
the enemy, and German soldiers had many French girlfriends. Some saw the French ladies as exotic,
and had them pose for images in their German uniforms, and a number of German soldiers
believed Paris in particular was filled with women who would sleep with them. They referred
to it as a ‘giant cathouse,’ and they would head into Paris and go into the brothels of the city.
But some women believed that the German men could give them a happy and great future,
and that they could start a family. After the war many couples who had met
did live happily, and many French women did leave France to go and live in Germany
with their German Husbands. Many German soldiers after the war were imprisoned in camps also,
and their French wives then went to go with them. But sleeping with the enemy, and the idea of
horizontal collaboration was seen in France as one of the most shameful things that a woman could do.
Following the D-Day invasion, and the advance from Normandy, the Allied forces liberated
many different French towns and settlements. Many people were jubilant that they had been liberated,
but quickly a sense of retribution against the enemy and in particular women developed.
The Ugly Carnival as it was known was public humiliation aimed to inflict pain psychologically
and physically onto the women who had slept with the German enemy. Many of the advancing
Allied soldiers who saw this were shocked, and were disgusted by what they saw, but they
then understood the hatred that many members of the French population had towards the Germans.
To subject their own people to such a horrific ordeal, the French must have truly hated living
under German and Nazi occupation, but the women of the Ugly carnival were subject to pure horror.
In front of huge crowds, women who were accused of sleeping with the Germans were brought into public
squares and outside town halls where thousands could see them. They were then subject often
to having their heads shaved, a punishment linked for centuries to humiliating women.
Many of these had their hair hacked by men and members of the resistance, and this was
very painful and a horrific scene. The women were often noted to be in floods of tears from this,
but some remained staunch in their appearance, not wanting to give the crowds what they wanted.
Many of the crowd were baying for their bloody and following the head shaving,
women were often forced to run throughout the crowd. Here they were often hit and beaten by
other members of the crowd. Some of the women were stripped half naked,
and were forced to walk the streets of the French towns, where the crowds would spit at them,
violently inflict pain onto them and some were beaten so badly that they actually died.
Many of the women were bloodied by the attacks, and many had swastikas drawn on their foreheads
or their bodies in paint of lipstick, showing without no question what these women had done.
The women were also forced to stand on carts and trucks where they were driven around
the towns and settlements, and then had things thrown at them. It was a very dangerous scene,
and of the women it was said that, ‘in the hands of their tormenters,
they had the look of a hunted animal.’ Many Allied soldiers wrote of the scenes, and said,
‘the French were rounding up collaborators, cutting their hair off and burning it in huge
piles, which one could smell miles away. Women collaborators were forced to run the gauntlet
and were really beaten.’ Some men who were accused of helping the Germans
were also subject to the Ugly Carnival, and many collaborators who may have given over Jews and
members of the French Resistance were even hanged in public to send a clear message of hatred.
In mid June following the capture of Carentan, a dozen women were shaved
publicly in the town square. Also on the 14th July in Cherbourg a truckload of young women,
many who were teenagers were paraded through the streets and were subject to the Ugly Carnival.
In one French town, one woman who became a victim had not slept with the enemy,
but she had just worked as a cleaner in the local German army headquarters.
One woman who was forced to also allow Germans to live in her house, a schoolteacher
was falsely slandered and humiliated. A number of the victims were also prostitutes who had not
bothered about the nationality of the soldiers who paid them, and in Paris it was known that a number
were killed by the crowd for their horizontal collaboration. But a large number of women who
were subject to the Ugly Carnival had slept with the enemy, and a number of them had been forced to
sleep with the Germans to secure financial pay, food and help for their children. Many believed
that the only way they would get food and not starve was to sleep with German officers who would
give them more lenient and better treatment, and many did look down on them for this.
One eyewitness who saw the events of the bloody ugly carnival stated, ‘‘I saw four girls who had
been led through the streets and I rushed towards them to take a photograph. At once
I found myself at the front of the procession, and the local people thought I was the female
soldier who had captured them or something like that, and I was kissed and congratulated at the
same time as slaps and spits rained down on the unfortunate girls.’ Another witness stated that,
‘‘I watched an open lorry drive past, to the accompaniment of boos and catcalls from the
French populace, with a dozen miserable women in the back. Every hair on their heads shaved off.
They were in tears, hanging their heads in shame. Whilst disgusted by this cruelty, I reflected that
we British had known no invasion or occupation for some 900 years, so we were not the best judges.’
It is estimated that at least 20,000 French women were forced to run the Ugly Carnival,
and had their heads shaved. The images of the women covered in swastika’s is very shocking,
and sent a clear message to everyone who was witnessing what was happening.
Some people inside of France and some inside of the Resistance hated the act of head shaving, for
example Colonel Henri Rol Tanguy printed a number of posters that said there would be reprisals made
against anyone who shaved the heads of women in this scene. One other resistance leader
knocked the heads together of two young boys who were tormenting a young woman for her ordeal.
A famous image titled ‘The Shaved Woman of Chartres,’ which was taken by Robert Capa on
the 16th August 1944 shows the horror of the Ugly Carnival. The picture shows a 23 year old woman,
Simone Touseau, who had worked as a translator for the Germans carrying her baby.
She had been in a relationship with a German soldier since 1941, and the couple had a daughter,
and this baby was brought also throughout the Ugly Carnival.
She was accused of denouncing neighbours who were then deported to concentration camps,
but she denied this. She was then forced to carry her daughter in her arms after she had her head
shaved, and her forehead had been marked in red and with an iron. She was paraded throughout the
streets of Chartres followed by many people including women, policemen and children.
Her father walked ahead carrying her bag, and her mother also suffered the same punishment,
and she was being escorted home and then she was sent to jail after.
The Ugly Carnival was a horrific scene of public humiliation in which 20,000 women were accused
of sleeping with the enemy. The French saw this as hugely insulting, especially as many of these
women received more food and money than the French people were getting, who were suffering
at the time during occupation. It was a harrowing sight, seeing women with their heads shaved crying
as swastikas were painted on them, and crowds tried to beat them. Many of these women were
forced out of their homes, and many were actually victims of the Germans who had been assaulted, and
who had been falsely accused of sleeping with the enemy. It is a dark period of the liberation of
France, and left a mark on the men who helped to liberate the country, which had suffered greatly.
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