A woman collaborator of Auxi-Le-Chateau being marched off by the Maquis, 1944

Photograph, World War Two, North West Europe (1944-1945), 1944.

More than 20,000 French people accused of collaborating or of having relationships with Germans had heir heads shaved in public. Nearly all those punished in this way were women. Many male collaborators were not punished at all. Recent research has suggested that most of the women accused were innocent of any sexual involvement with Germans and that the punishments were in reality a symbolic way for the population to vent its anger at the enemy and the recent occupation.

From an album containing 211 photographs compiled by Major Wilfred Herbert James Sale, MC, 3rd/4th County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters), 1944-1945.