Date: Mon, 17 Jul 1995
From: Linda Grant De Pauw, Minerva Center and
George Washington University
<MinervaCen%aol.com>
In De Sica's film, "Two Women," Moroccan soldiers gang-rape a mother
and daughter in a bombed-out church. This scene reflected the "common
knowledge" of events in Italy.
Apparently the Morrocan propensity to rape was generally accepted as
fact. General George F. Patton, Jr., *War as I Knew It*, wrote (p.
71): "One funny thing happened in connection with the Moroccan
troops,. A Sicilian came to me and said he had a complaint to make
about the conduct of the Moroccans, or Goums, as they are called. He
said he well knew that all Goums were thieves, also that they were
murderers, and sometimes indulged in rape--these things he could
understand and make allowances for, but when they came to his home,
killed his rabbits, and then skinned them in the parlor, it was going
too far."
Not an Italian example, but perhaps relevant, was a report issued by
the German police chief of Stuttgart in August 1945 in which he
stated that local police had verified 1,198 cases of rape. The ages
of the victims ranged from 14 to 74 and most of them "were attacked
in their homes by turbaned Moroccans who broke down the doors in
looting forays. Four of the women were killed by their attackers,
and four others committed suicide. One of the victims was killed by
her husband who then killed himself. ["Rape Story Dispute Grows in
Stuttgart," *New York Times*, August 11, 1945, p. 10]
It is very hard to get history of rape from secondary sources.
Three factors make it difficult: 1) the production of atrocity
stories for propaganda purposes; 2) the shame felt by the victims and
their families who seek to keep the facts secret; and 3) the
unwillingness of historians to look at the subject. As the quotation
from Patton illustrates, rape is considered a trivial and rather
funny sidelight in the history of war.
Any proposal to undertake the Italian oral history project that would be
necessary to answer this query in a scholarly way would be dismissed as
frivolous and in bad taste if presented either to a book publisher or to a
dissertation committee. (The MINERVA Center, however, would be delighted
to consider an article on the subject for possible publication in MINERVA:
Quarterly Report on Women and the Military.)
Linda Grant De Pauw, President
The MINERVA Center, Inc.
20 Granada Road
Pasadena, MD 21122
(410) 437-5379
minervacen@aol.com