In the summer of 1944, as France finally tore itself free from Nazi occupation, the streets did not fill only with celebration— they filled with rage.

  In the summer of 1944, as France finally tore itself free from Nazi occupation, the streets did not fill only with celebration—

they filled with rage.

And in that rage, thousands of French women became targets of a punishment that was as public as it was merciless.

The photograph you see—harsh, raw, impossible to ignore—captures one of these women in a moment so humiliating that it still shakes historians today. She stands dazed, lips bloodied, while furious men grip her face and shove her through the mob. Behind her, helmets and fists blur together into a single storm of anger.

Her crime?

Many of these women were accused of having romantic relationships with German soldiers during the occupation…

but the truth is far more complicated.

During what the French called the épuration sauvage—the “wild purge”—accusations were often vague, exaggerated, or fueled by jealousy, revenge, or old grudges. Some women did collaborate, yes. But countless others were punished simply because someone pointed a finger at them.

And the punishment was always public.

Always cruel.

Crowds dragged them into the squares. Some were spit on. Some were paraded. Many had swastikas drawn on their bodies.

Most had their heads forcibly shaved—the act meant to strip away dignity, identity, and any sense of safety they had left.

For the angry mobs, this ritual was seen as “national cleansing.”

For the women, it was a lifetime of shame sealed in a single afternoon.

The faces in the photograph tell you everything: the fury of men who believed they were reclaiming their country, and the hollow heartbreak of a woman paying a price far deeper than anyone could measure.

And yet history reminds us—again and again—that anger rarely stops to ask who is truly guilty.

The photograph, like so many others from this period, is a haunting testament to the violence that erupts when revenge and justice become indistinguishable. These women, often called “horizontal collaborators” or "les femmes tondues" (the shorn women), became scapegoats in a society desperate to reassert itself after years of humiliation. The end of the war meant the end of occupation, but it also brought the chaos of sorting out who was "truly" French and who had betrayed their country. With the collective trauma of war still fresh, many believed that the only way to restore national pride was through violent retribution, and these women were seen as an easy target for the nation's collective anger.

What’s often overlooked, however, is the role that women played in the resistance, which the men of the time either overlooked or chose to ignore in their rage. Thousands of women had risked their lives to support the fight against the Nazis, working as spies, couriers, and even engaging in sabotage. But in the aftermath, their contributions were forgotten in favor of a narrative that cast them as collaborators. It was as if society couldn’t comprehend the complexity of wartime survival, and instead, it created a false dichotomy—either you were a hero or a traitor. For many women, simply trying to survive in a foreign occupation, with food and resources scarce, was painted as betrayal, even when they had done no such thing.

The women who were publicly humiliated and punished never really recovered from the trauma. Even if they survived the mob’s anger, the scars remained—for many, both physical and emotional. Those who had their heads shaved were often ostracized from their communities, shunned by families and friends who could no longer see them as innocent. The psychological damage done in those moments was lifelong, as many of these women spent the rest of their days haunted by the public disgrace. And some were even left with no choice but to leave their homes, unable to bear the shame imposed upon them by a society that had turned its back on them in their hour of need.

Even after the purge ended, the specter of those brutal acts lingered over France for decades. There was no real reckoning, no deep national reflection on what had happened. The women, in particular, were rarely given the opportunity to tell their side of the story. Instead, their actions—real or fabricated—were judged in a way that denied them a chance to heal, to reclaim their dignity. They were marginalized, their voices silenced, as history moved on, focusing instead on the heroics of the men who fought and resisted, often ignoring the complex roles women had played in the resistance, as well as the myriad ways they suffered.

It wasn’t until much later that France began to confront this chapter of its past, and even then, the healing process was slow and painful. Some women spoke out, finally sharing their stories, but many more remained silent, unwilling or unable to relive the horrors they had endured. They had been punished for their supposed betrayal, but in truth, they were victims of a larger societal collapse—a collapse where anger and the need for retribution obscured any semblance of justice or understanding. In the end, it wasn’t just the women who were left scarred by the violence of the épuration sauvage—it was a whole nation, struggling to come to terms with what had been lost during the war and what it had been willing to sacrifice in the name of retribution.