Marocchinate

Poster made by Gino Boccasile in 1944 as an advert from the Italian Social Republic to defend and hide the women from colonialist troops. The caption states: "Protect, this could be your mother, your wife, your sister, your daughter".

Marocchinate (Italian for "Moroccan deeds") is a term applied to the mass rapes and killings committed against Italian civilians mainly by the Moroccan Goumiers, colonial troops of the French Expeditionary Corps (FEC), during World War II after the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy.

History

Monte Cassino was captured by the Allies on 18 May 1944. The next night, thousands of Goumiers and other colonial troops scoured the slopes of the hills surrounding the town and the villages of Ciociaria (in South Latium). Italian victims associations alleged that 60,000 women, ranging in age from 11 to 86, suffered from violence, when village after village came under control of the Goumiers. Civilian men who tried to protect their wives and daughters were murdered.

The number of men killed has been estimated at 800. In fact, due to incomplete reports of the crimes, a precise account is impossible. An alleged statement by General Alphonse Juin before the battle said:

"For fifty hours you will be the absolute masters of what you will find beyond the enemy. Nobody will punish you for what you will do, nobody will ask you about what you are up to."

The mayor of Esperia, a municipality in the province of Frosinone, reported that in his town, 700 women out of 2,500 inhabitants were raped resulting in many deaths. According to Italian victims associations, a total of more than 7,000 civilians, including children, were raped by Goumiers.

In May 1944, Allied forces bombed and shelled the sixth-century abbey of Monte Cassino to rubble, forcing the German defenders there to withdraw. Among the Allied troops was a division of Moroccan soldiers. Even then the Allies wanted to have “diversity” among their forces in order to show the world that they believed in racial equality. Well, the Moroccans weren’t much as fighters, but they were pretty good at cutting the throats of prisoners after the fighting was over. And they also excelled at raping civilians — and prisoners too, occasionally, buggery being an established tradition among them. The night after the Germans had withdrawn, the Moroccans — 12,000 of them — left their camp and swarmed over the mountain villages around Monte Cassino. They raped every village woman and girl they could get their hands on, an estimated 3,000 women, ranging in age from 11 years to 86 years old. They murdered 800 village men who tried to protect their women. They abused some of the women so badly that more than 100 of them died. They selected the prettiest girls for gang-raping, with long lines of dark-skinned Moroccans waiting their turn in front of each one, while other Moroccans held the victims down. And they raped some of the young men as well.

Mamma Ciociara

Mamma Ciociara is an Italian monument by the sculptor Fedele Andreani in memory of the victims of mass rape and other war and post-war crimes committed by Moroccans during and after the Second World War. It was inaugurated on 3 June 1964 on the cliff on the northern top of the old Italian town of Castro dei Volsci.

See also

• Battle of Monte Cassino
• Mass rapes by Allied forces during World War II

External links

• Mass Rape Of Italian Women By French Colonial Soldiers In 1944 (Archive)