An ugly carnival

[Kennah]

"... brutal head-shaving and beating of women accused of collaboration"

"There was a strong element of vicarious eroticism among the tondeurs and their crowd, even though the punishment they were about to inflict symbolised the desexualisation of their victim."

"Some were daubed with tar, some stripped half naked, some marked ... in paint or lipstick."

"Women almost always were the first targets, because they offered the easiest and most vulnerable scapegoats, particularly for those men who had joined the resistance at the last moment."

What the hell is going on in Libya? I mean we can't allow this to, um, er, wait. This was France? 1944?

Oh.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jun/05/women-victims-d-day-landings-second-world-war

[louis-t]

1. Accused of sleeping with German soldiers.

Anyone who watched Band of Brothers knows of this story.

[Confusious]

2. Well, to be fair

if you were a male collaborator, you didn't get your head shaved.

You were summarily executed.

[Kennah]

3. Yep, that was the other half of liberation.

Some estimates say thousands of extra-judicial summary executions, and it wasn't even the guy at the top.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. The guy at the top also died (France)

[Art_from_Ark]

7. If you are talking about Marshal Petain

(head of the Vichy government), he was originally sentenced to death for treason, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison, where he died six years after the war ended, at the age of 95.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

8. I was refering to Pierre Laval

Who was executed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Laval

[ellisonz]

5. Makes Libyans seem tame...

Let's not even get into what went on in the Soviet Union.

[riderinthestorm]

6. Collaborators never meet a good end. History is written by the "winners" (for a reason). nt