During World War II, French colonial troops, including 130,000 Moroccan soldiers, brutally raped and assaulted women, men, and children in various Italian cities.
Today we will talk about one of the most brutal and difficult episodes of the entire war, the event known as Marinato.
I warn you that the content is strong; I will be discussing sensitive topics, so if you are strong, watch until the end.
The role of women in war environments: Many women were used and abused in every imaginable way during World War II, not only on the battlefields, as was the case in the Soviet Union, but also in espionage missions, in factories that sustained the world economy throughout that period, and also performing daily tasks alone, especially considering that a large part of their husbands were fighting in distant locations.
Many women also suffered in the well-known militarized brothels.
In these places, usually in countries occupied by the Nazis or Fascists, the women had the role of keeping the soldiers entertained and away from homosexuality, so feared and hated by the Axis leaders.
Building these brothels was also a A way to prevent soldiers from becoming involved with women from detested places, even though this was common during the war—we even have a video on the channel talking about how these brothels worked and the whole context of the time; it’s worth checking out
to understand more about the subject— German women also suffered.
Speaking of this context of women’s suffering in World War II, we almost always forget to mention the cases of sexual abuse and beatings that young women living in Germany suffered after the invasion by Stalin’s Red Army, as well as the French, English, and Americans.
Indeed, it wasn’t just the Nazis and Fascists who committed this type of absurd crime in the invaded nations; attacks on German women became relatively common in 1945, especially after the Battle of Berlin.
Ingeborg Bul is the name of the young woman who lived under the Third Reich’s regime at the time and who suffered abuse from two Soviet soldiers when she was only 20 years old.
These stories in Berlin even gave rise to the film ” A Woman in Berlin,” starring the well-known German actress Nina Ross.
These cases were not isolated, as we will see in the following sections of the video.
Italian women also suffered considerable abuse after the long battle of Monte Cassino in 1944.
But what was the Battle of Monte Cassino? Before we talk about the violent abuses that occurred there, it’s worth mentioning that the Battle of Monte Cassino, also known as the Battle of Rome, was a series of four battles fought by Allied troops against the Winter Line in Italy, the latter held by the Axis powers during the Italian campaign.
Officially, this conflict lasted 123 days, beginning on January 17, 1944, and ending on May 18 of the same year.
Unfortunately, the conflict brought destruction not only to the battlefields, as we will see in the following sections of the video.
The little-discussed abuses: the sexual abuses suffered by Italian women after the Battle of Monte Cassino were kept secret for a long time by the Allies.
Obviously, this is due to the fact that those who committed the assaults were precisely their own troops; that is, they were afraid that these accounts would tarnish the image of heroism of their own.
The combatants, the witnesses who experienced those horrors, however, will never forget those traumas; the wounds that were opened during that period will never close.
Two of the witnesses said that during the night they could hear the cries of some young women who had been kidnapped.
“We were hiding inside a gallery with other people and we heard the women screaming for help; we could hear them calling for their families.
It was devastating to hear those voices during the night.
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” The troops sent by France—the term used to describe the abuses and violence committed after the Battle of Monte Cassino was “Maroquin Nat”—the French expeditionary force present in Italian territory consisted of 130,000 men, among them Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians,
and Senegalese, all belonging to French colonies located in the northern part of the African continent.
It was common for some of these men to have a more.
More fundamentalist than the Europeans, called Gumiro, numbering 7833 soldiers in these troops.
They were known for wearing green wool tunics, multicolored sandals, and burlesques— all characteristic of Arab countries.
Regarding accessories from the Middle East, these men commonly carried a curved dagger on their belts; they generally used these bladed weapons to cut off the ears and noses of their enemies to display on necklaces— completely bizarre.
The commander of these troops was the Algerian Alfon Juan.
The military leader had been a close collaborator of the Nazi regime previously, but ended up becoming an important figure after deciding to work alongside the Allied countries after the landing in Sicily.
Even before the Battle of Monte Cassino, it was possible to observe the brutality and abuses committed by the Moroccan troops.
The violent actions only paused after the Allied soldiers were trapped in Cassino on the Gustav Line, precisely while they were advancing through Italian territory without major problems on the Gustav Line.
However, the resistance of the Axis troops, especially the Germans, was much greater.
Alfon Juan developed a very interesting strategy.
He proposed that his soldiers surround.
That enemy stronghold on Mount Petrela, located east of Monte Cassino, had been left partially unprotected by the Germans.
However, they anticipated that troops from countries colonized by France could advance and cause significant damage.
Their strategy was to warn the civilian population of Tiara with pamphlets, instructing them to abandon the area and flee.
This occurred in May 1940.
The population was terrified.
After all, the French troops, who could liberate the country from the fascists, could also cause great destruction, chaos, and trauma to the inhabitants.
The fascist National Guard managed to evacuate many of the children from the area.
They were taken to some of the colonies in Rini, but the civilian population decided to hide in tents and wagons on a medium-sized plateau called Plica, just below Mount Petrela.
As mentioned earlier, the Italians’ fears were correct, as the French troops brought not only chaos, destruction, and death, but also sexual abuse and violence.
The Allied advances and the beginning of Hell on that day were even more traumatizing.
May 14, 1944: The Allied troops’ advance was a great success.
German defenses were already losing strength, and their collapse occurred during that period.
This is how the Axis soldiers reached Monte Cassino.
The location was captured on May 18th.
On that day, the infamous battle ended.
The following night, a division of thousands of Gomia decided to abandon their camp and went to the surrounding mountains that encircled the cities and villages of the Titia region.
After the battle, the men belonging to this division were ready to cause true chaos in the cities and villages inhabited by civilians.
The Gomia showed no humanity, compassion, or control.
The abuses of the Gomia began with these Moroccan divisions selecting the girls considered the most beautiful in each city, then sexually abusing them in cowardly and disgusting groups.
They used to hold the victims by the arms and ankles while the violent acts were committed.
What is most revolting is that many of these girls were not even teenagers; we are talking about children, which makes us even more disgusted.
One of the women.
.
.
Those who lived in the area at that time recount what the abusers did to their sister.
I saw my younger sister, still a child, with blood running down her legs.
I asked my mother what happened to Filomena.
My mother, crying, lied, saying that she had fallen in one of the villages.
30 women and two men were abused in Palermo.
For example, two young sisters, 15 and 17 years old respectively, were forced to have sexual relations with an entire platoon of 200 men.
After these absurd acts, one of them died and the other had a psychotic episode due to all the brutality and violence of those soldiers.
The survivor even ended up spending 53 years in a mental hospital as a consequence of all this.
The violence suffered by civilians was not only sexual; the cruelty extended to other aggressive acts.
One of the witnesses recounts the following: some soldiers saw a girl with her earrings.
These scoundrels, one of them literally ripped the earrings off with his own hands.
It is impossible to explain the pain.
Abuse against men is one of the most absurd cases related to.
Sexual violence involved the abuse of a 60- year-old man by 300 Franco-Moroccan soldiers.
This gang rape was not isolated; several other men living in small towns near the site were also violated.
Furthermore, houses were looted; the soldiers took all items of value.
In short, it was a true humiliation.
There is evidence suggesting that one of these abused men was a priest known as Dom Alberto Teril.
The priest was trying to protect two girls from being abused; they were only six and nine years old, but the Franco-Moroccan soldiers did not tolerate this.
The priest was then tied to a tree and suffered sexual abuse for at least an entire night, dying shortly afterward after suffering numerous internal lacerations.
As we are seeing, the cases only worsen and show how inhumane these soldiers were.
More absurd acts of violence occurred in the neighboring city of Pico in Italy; the soldiers decided to commit the absurd act of crucifying a girl and her sister, forcing the entire family of the two young women to watch the process.
It was always known that war involved.
There was a lot of cruelty and violence, but this type of aggression against a population that was as much a victim of fascism and Nazism as those who inhabited the nations invaded by the Axis is truly unjustifiable.
Here we see another account on the subject: “When this misfortune happened to me, my cousins and other people were also there.
They started shooting because we didn’t give them what they wanted; they wanted to scare us.
” But what about the commanders? They did nothing to stop the abuses.
The famous General Charles de Gull was in charge of the entire French Expeditionary Force, but it was General Alfonso Zuan who was in charge of the Franco-Aquinese troops.
As we have already said, both knew what was happening in the region.
But that doesn’t mean they did anything to stop the horrific acts of the Booms.
In reality, Alfonso may even have encouraged this hateful behavior of his troops.
We can say that, in their view, this was a form of revenge for the attacks carried out by the Nazis in the rest of European territory.
The problem is that this revenge was disproportionate and directed at those who had no connection with what had happened previously, right? Hundreds.
From humble civilians—women, children, innocent men, the elderly— even the animals that lived in the surrounding areas suffered abuse, robbery, beatings, and cold-blooded murders at the hands of troops from countries colonized by the French.
Italy, in particular, was where the horror reached its peak during the entire war.
There, various reports indicate that girls, boys, and the elderly all suffered rapes with cruelty exceeding that of ordinary crimes.
Men who tried to defend their families, neighbors, or friends were often shot, castrated, and sometimes even impaled while still alive.
Basically, those who tried to resist did not have a very peaceful end.
Here we have some more testimonies exemplifying this: at the top of the mountain, a poor father who tried to defend his daughter was killed.
Another survivor said there were two of them; one went in, the other stayed outside.
My father, when he saw the one who went in, said, “What’s happening now?” He tried to stop the invader, but the one who stayed outside shot him.
He died instantly; his head was left behind.
My father gave details about the methods used by the Gumilier soldiers.
Moroccans had an aggressive method even to enter the homes of those who lived in the cities.
They usually knocked on the doors; if they weren’t opened, they would break them down and beat the victims with blows to the head with rifle butts.
When the residents fell unconscious to the ground, the gumier would drag them a few meters away and begin the abuses.
While all this was happening, their family members were beaten and tied to trees or posts so they could witness all the atrocities.
It’s difficult to imagine the feeling of seeing a loved one suffering and not being able to do anything to help, especially because you are tied up somewhere with a gun pointed at your head.
It’s completely absurd, a complete despair.
Reconstructing the events through archives and records in the following years, however, it was possible to verify many records, files, documents, and even testimonies that helped to understand what had occurred in this part of Italian territory.
It was only possible to understand the facts after an extensive and harsh review of these documents.
Today it is possible to affirm that there were at least 20,000 cases of rape in the region.
Even so, this number does not necessarily reflect reality, since only 1/3 of the women managed to overcome this unjustified shame.
and to report their abusers, some projections suggest that there were actually at least 60,000 cases of sexual abuse at the time.
We also have to consider that many of these women suffered harassment more than once and from more than one man.
If we consider all this, the numbers would be even more devastating than they already are.
Medical records exemplify these abuses even more clearly.
Many people arrived at these health units with anal lacerations and vocal cord injuries.
Due to these constant abuses, these were not the only physical injuries, as there are also records of broken teeth to prevent bites from the victims, as well as impalement and castrations that were generally performed on men who tried to defend their mothers, wives, and daughters.
All this without considering the mutilations that were practiced out of pure malice.
Sexually transmitted diseases also became one of the great tragedies of the period, causing thousands of deaths in the Italian communities surrounding the region.
We also had numerous cases of pregnancy, with few of these babies surviving.
After all, many women did not want to continue a pregnancy.
Children who were the result of rape were often subjected to home abortions, thus reducing evidence of the atrocities committed.
After the war, the Veroli orphanage ended up receiving around 400 unwanted children born as a result of these abuses.
So, were only the Gumier soldiers from North Africa involved in these abuses? The answer is no.
Although the division formed by soldiers from North African territory became known as the main perpetrators of these abuses, there were also white French soldiers who participated in this excessive violence in Italian territory.
It’s important to remember that none of this was an ethnic issue, since French soldiers of European origin represented about 40% of the entire military body.
It would be irresponsible to attribute all sexual abuse and beatings to Gumier soldiers of African origin.
Even so, the French population still has difficulty admitting these cases today.
Many say that this behavior was only common in a part of the population.
This position seems quite racist, especially when we consider the data presented earlier, and these are not the only reports; there are English documents that show that French soldiers without any Moroccan or Algerian roots also committed abuse.
A large number of women were sodomized in the streets, many prisoners were sodomized, and even the leaders of the region’s villages were castrated.
The victims were not distinguished by age, social status, sex, ethnicity, or origin.
The bestiality of the Allied troops was as great as that of the Nazis.
This is indeed the reality.
Although many try to find justifications for these crimes, they do not exist.
These men were never punished and were even encouraged by their own superiors.
In addition to all the people who died or suffered physical consequences, we must also remember those who never managed to overcome the traumas suffered there.
Many killed themselves or remained institutionalized in psychiatric institutions for the rest of their lives.
And here are some more devastating accounts: ” I thought I was going to die.
I thought, ‘Now they’re going to kill me.
‘ If they had killed me, it would have been better.
I was waiting for my final blow.
I was young, but I was waiting for my final blow.
My body was waiting.
We thought they would kill everyone that night.
” Another survivor said, “Like Jesus Christ when they massacred him, this is what they did to me.
” The question that remains is: was no one punished? The truth is that all this remained hidden for decades.
The International Red Cross even intended to help Italy in these matters, but.
The country’s government was afraid of damaging its diplomatic relations with France, and in the end, the war crimes went unpunished.
The two generals responsible for the expeditionary troops did not reprimand their men and were not punished for it either.
So, unfortunately, folks, this is one of those stories without a happy ending.
