Women, be silent because your trauma makes people uncomfortable.

[JellySaurus]

This is an article about female French Resistance fighters and survivors. It really struck me how women were actively silenced and made invisible after the war. Treatment of PTSD was developing at that time, and it was understand that talking therapies were very helpful. But by silencing the women these therapies were withheld from them.

…there was a kind of a shame around being a woman that was in a camp…

They were shamed - punished - for being tortured.

As young women, they were often told after the war to keep their stories quiet…

So, not only did their heroism go unrecognised, but their trauma went untreated.

"Women bear the brunt of wars in ways that were unacknowledged, profound ways, and I want that to be recognised and known," says Gwen.

Thank you for sharing that.

What a brilliant article. It seems almost unbelievable and unbearable what those young women and so many others had to endure.

That’s very powerful and moving. And yes, there are so many ways in which women’s experiences of war (as of life in general) are ignored, erased, denied a voice. Made taboo to even mention. I didn’t even know about the “Rape of Berlin” till a few years ago, for example; and the brutal reality of rape as a commonplace war crime has only recently begun to be more widely acknowledged.

Of course acknowledging the trauma that men inflict on women makes men uncomfortable, of course it’s awkward for them to recognise the full extent of the harm they, as a class, do to us, as a class. It makes them look bad, after all. No wonder they deliberately leave our voices out of the narrative as much as they can. No wonder those men who directly benefit from oppressing us still do all they can to silence our voices.

Thanks for sharing this, OP.

Interesting.

Reflecting: there are many books, drama series and films that draw on and sympathetically explore the tragedy and duration of the psychological injury to men during wars, either as the focal character or minor characters. They're very positive; it's done a great deal in raising awareness and understanding. But I can't off the top of my head think of any about women.

And yet some of the leaps in key child psychology development that took place in New York after WW2 came from toddlers and young children of immigrant European parents who were survivors of concentration camps, where the psychologists began to recognise the trauma of the mother was an integral part of understanding the needs of the child.

Of course acknowledging the trauma that men inflict on women makes men uncomfortable, of course it’s awkward for them to recognise the full extent of the harm they, as a class, do to us, as a class. It makes them look bad, after all. No wonder they deliberately leave our voices out of the narrative as much as they can. No wonder those men who directly benefit from oppressing us still do all they can to silence our voices.

Yep.

the Resistance was probably at least 50% women - stupidly, this hadn't occurred to me.

Thanks for posting, OP. Moving and very interesting.

Thanks for sharing, that's a really inspirational story

Thanks for posting.

If anyone is interested to read more, Caroline Moorehead wrote an excellent book about women in the French resistance called A Train in Winter, link here: www.amazon.co.uk/Train-Winter-Resistance-Friendship-Auschwitz/dp/0099523892?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

On a similar theme, I really recommend The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich which chronicles the experiences of Soviet women in the Second World War. Details here if anyone is interested:
www.penguin.co.uk/books/295/295606/the-unwomanly-face-of-war/9780141983530.html

Both are excellent.

Definitely. Thanks for the recommendations.

I forgot to mention A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell about Virginia Hall working undercover for SOE in France. Not only was she a woman, but she had a wooden leg. Her story is quite remarkable but - quelle surprise - despite incredible bravery, she was often overlooked in favour of her male colleagues and was sidelined after the War.

www.amazon.co.uk/Woman-No-Importance-Dangerous-Virginia/dp/0349010188?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Thank you for sharing this Jelly I've just downloaded the book on my Kindle its only 99p its called The Nine by Gwen Strauss

Fascinating, horrifying article, thank you. Well done Gwen Strauss, the researcher whose great aunt was in the resistance. The article mentions a book by Gwen about it ‘The Nine’.

Didn’t know that ‘ the [French] Resistance was probably at least 50% women."

Just downloaded The Nine on Kindle too. Thanks for sharing.

@RoaringtoLangClegintheDark

That’s very powerful and moving. And yes, there are so many ways in which women’s experiences of war (as of life in general) are ignored, erased, denied a voice. Made taboo to even mention. I didn’t even know about the “Rape of Berlin” till a few years ago, for example; and the brutal reality of rape as a commonplace war crime has only recently begun to be more widely acknowledged.

Of course acknowledging the trauma that men inflict on women makes men uncomfortable, of course it’s awkward for them to recognise the full extent of the harm they, as a class, do to us, as a class. It makes them look bad, after all. No wonder they deliberately leave our voices out of the narrative as much as they can. No wonder those men who directly benefit from oppressing us still do all they can to silence our voices.

Thanks for sharing this, OP.

A decade or so ago I transport a elderly German lady by ambulance from a&e to her empty home in they middle of the night.

When we got her home she was very keen for us to stay and talk (and as a tired paramedic on a night shift I didn't need much persuading) so made us all a cup of tea.

She proceeded to proudly show us a photo of her beautiful blonde haired blue eyed brother who can't have been much more than 20 when he was killed fighting in the German army. She then talked about "running the gauntlet" of machine gun fire, as a teenager, with her mother over a bridge from East Berlin to West, she was quite frank in stating that it was better to take the risk of being killed than stay behind and be gang raped by the Russians.

This was the first time I heard of the "rape of Berlin".

She made it to West Berlin, with her mother, and later met and married a British soldier based in Germany in moved with him the the UK.

I'm glad she felt able to tell her story, I can't imagine the absolute terror she must have felt at the time.

(I also once cared for an elderly former RAF photographer who escaped stalag luft 3).

Artichoke good point re. Psychology.
I can think of one series about women's experiences in war - the brilliant Tenko - wall-to-wall women , some brave, some sneaky, all surviving.

@AsTreesWalking

Artichoke good point re. Psychology. I can think of one series about women's experiences in war - the brilliant Tenko - wall-to-wall women , some brave, some sneaky, all surviving.

Tenko is being repeated starting today at 2:20 pm on the Drama channel. The film Odette has just finished on BBC 2.

Thanks Rhiannon

True today too wrt ptsd from dv. It's still very much taboo.

Tenko is being repeated starting today at 2:20 pm on the Drama channel.

Thanks! I've set up a series record. Hope to watch it with dd. I remember watching it with my mum.

Such a rare thing, for women's stories to be valued.

Why were women in particular told to be quiet about their experiences in the resistance? Why were their countries not proud of them?

Why didn’t they just identify as men? Problem solved.

Probably wrong place for this comment .. but I’m just sick of the ways women are treated.

But as you can see.. once again sex based oppression. These women were silenced because they were women. Not because of a feeling.

We know rape has been used as a weapon of war for generations. Rape was and still is something shameful for women to go thru. I imagine many resistance fighters were subjected to torture and sexual abuse during the war. Rape and sexual intimidation was par for the course.

I think many governments wanted to forget that particular ugly piece of the war experiences for women.

We also won’t get into the black market and back alley abortion economy that thrived in the war either. Some nations had wings for women to go get abortions that resulted from rape from foreign soldiers. It was illegal but they had them because they were aware of this nasty situation and the women themselves did not want to stigma of having the child.

War is never fun for anyone, but being a woman in a war zone is it’s own special kind of hell.

@JellySaurus

Tenko is being repeated starting today at 2:20 pm on the Drama channel.

Thanks! I've set up a series record. Hope to watch it with dd. I remember watching it with my mum.

Such a rare thing, for women's stories to be valued.

That’s one of the reasons many people, including myself , were angry when the excellent Home Fires wasn’t recommission by ITV. Woman’s stories were at the heart of that series too.

Sarah Helm has also written about female resistance and other female wartime heros. A Life in Secrets is one I'm trawling through.

Mass rapes by Allied soldiers happened in Italy too in 1944 and for once this trauma was acknowledged in film. Sophia Loren won an Oscar for her role as the mother in "Two women".

@PlasticPlantsDontDie

Why were women in particular told to be quiet about their experiences in the resistance? Why were their countries not proud of them?

Patriarchal attitude that raped women are 'damaged goods'.