When Allied forces landed on five beaches in Normandy on June 6, 1944, the Nazis faced the largest naval, air, and land invasion in history. For those suffering under Nazi occupation, Operation Overlord, or D-Day, was a long-awaited moment.
For those who had collaborated with the Nazi regime, it was a very different situation. In France, city after city was liberated.
Alongside many happy images, such as cheering crowds after the Liberation of Paris in August 1944, there were also shocking ones. Angry crowds demanded revenge and publicly shaved the heads of women accused of horizontal collaboration, meaning having sexual relationships with the Nazis during the occupation.
Thousands of women were brutally head-shaved, often beaten, and then marched through the streets in these humiliating acts of revenge. They included prostitutes and mothers without husbands who had no other means of obtaining food for themselves and their children aside from becoming lovers of German soldiers.
While the crowd cheered, these women were humiliated and in tears. It is estimated that 23,500 women had their heads shaved as punishment for their sexual relationships with the German occupants.