«Soldiers! This time it is not just the freedom of your lands that I offer you if you win this battle. Behind the enemy there are women, case, there is a wine among the best in the world, there is gold. All of this will be yours if you win. You will have to kill the Germans down to the last man and pass at any cost. What I told you and promised you I keep. For fifty hours you will be the absolute masters of what you will find beyond the enemy. Nobody will punish you for what you do, no one will ask you to account for what you take » This is what the French war leaflets said which "encouraged" the goumiers, the Moroccan soldiers hired through the so-called Cef (the French colonial army) which had the aim of helping the allied divisions during the Italian campaign, in the last acts of the Second World War. The words were attributed to General Alphonse Juin, who after the first operations promised "fifty hours of freedom" to the soldiers. After the 14 May of 1944 the goumiers of the French Expeditionary Force in Italy, who avoided the German lines in the Liri Valley, in the province of Frosinone, and allowed the British army to cross the Gustav Line (that is, the fortification that divided Italy between the RSI and the Allied occupation zone), they raided the surrounding areas without too many compliments, of lower Lazio, carrying out violence on the population - in particular on women - which today we all remember and bitterly define as Moroccan. In the year in which the violence continued, they went as far as lower Tuscany. Actually, the rapes by Moroccan troops had already begun in July 1943, after the Allied landing in Sicily. On that occasion further 800 North Africans carried out looting of all kinds, raping women and children in the Troina area, in the province of Enna. According to the historian Michelangelo Ingrassia, the Sicilians reacted by killing some with shotguns and pitchforks. But what happened in Ciociaria and the surrounding areas produced even more dramatic numbers. In the 2011 Emiliano Ciotti, president of the Association of Victims of the Marocchinate, declares: “In the night session of the Chamber of 7 April 1952 the PCI deputy Maria Maddalena Rossi reported that only in the province of Frosinone there had been 60.000 violence by General Juin's troops. From the numerous documents collected today we can affirm that there were 20.000 confirmed cases of violence, completely underestimated number; several medical reports of the time reported that a third of women were raped, who had undergone treatment, whether out of shame or modesty, he preferred not to report. Making an overall assessment of the violence committed by the Cef, starting in Sicily and ending at the gates of Florence, we can therefore say with certainty that there was a minimum of 60.000 raped women, each one, almost always by multiple men. The North African soldiers, for example, on average they raped in groups of two or three, but we have also collected testimonies of women raped by 100, 200 e 300 men. In addition to rape , there were tens of thousands of requests for compensation for material damage: thefts, fire, looting and destruction". Juin was under the direct command of General De Gaulle, on whom lies the heavy responsibility for the crime. You could say that anything happens in war. A little less can be argued when a winning faction gives 70 years ago he taught us morals about the invention of the war crime, after throwing two atomic bombs and committing massacres of all kinds, passed over in silence because they were "on the right side of history". There were just under 8 thousand goumiers. The dimensions of their criminal action speak unequivocally. While, Obviously, there are the usual disagreements about the figures. Specifically foreign sources, filmed “strangely” by a text adopted by the Basilicata Region, they talk about 3500 women and 800 men. But although there may be a rush to downsize - real or presumed - the concept does not change one iota. L’Central State Archive it also reports responsibility of native French people: in Pico they were raped 51 women from 181 Franco-Africans and from 45 bianchi. Nine of them were minors. Everyone knew everything: Italian “government”, French government e, Obviously, Americans too. But nobody did anything. Little or nothing was said about Morocchinate until a few years ago. That this had happened was a matter already communicated (since a communist deputy talks about it in a session of the Chamber, to be precise) unlike the Foibe episodes, and the fact that it is one of the greatest masterpieces of Italian cinema, The ciociara by Vittorio De Sica, addressed the topic, is certainly evidence of this. Beyond the communication of a drama that seems almost invented due to its madness, but it isn't there. The very brief parliamentary debate mentioned above was generated in 1951, following a meeting of women in a cinema in Pontecorvo which addressed the issue. No in-depth analysis and dissemination of the figures, on the incredible massification of the phenomenon. No story ever appeared in other languages. Despite the work of some local citizens who immediately worked to bring it out, like the well-known professor Bruno d'Epiro, citizen of Hesperia. On the contrary, the authorities allowed themselves not only to glorify the invaders, but even to remember its collective memory: the Venafro cemetery hosts the fallen of the Cef as if they were not only valiant defenders of a country that they were helping to destroy definitively, but also leaving aside the very heavy stain that weighed on them. Because it's good to know, putting things in order and not telling lies: as well as being occupied militarily, socially and culturally, let's honor criminals who have tortured our civilian population without too many compliments. Circuits from a complicit and conniving State, despite some completely irrelevant niche "reactions".. A state that pays 30 billions owed to France for war reparations. Don't say it, Please, which is the fault of the Italians. Italians are simply victims of criminal pedagogy, and it is perfectly logical that they make it their own. The drama of the Morocchinate was further vilified by the release of a pornographic remake of De Sica's film, directed by the well-known hardcore director Mario Salieri. A shame against which he took action, fortunately, il Prefect of Frosinone. Some spontaneous popular reaction, However, resists impositions and shows intolerance. When in the 1985, to Esperia, a demonstration of reconciliation was organized between all the veterans of the war, the French were not invited. There was still no talk of morocchinate, and locally, in the dramatic silence of those who have no voice except to receive ridiculous pats on the back, they reacted. And still today, Often, the Venafro war cemetery is smeared with paint. It will be said that this happens for many things, nowadays.
But the place is too symbolic to ignore.
"Good 25 April".
 
SOURCE: https://oltrelalinea.news/2017/04/25/marocchinate-il-25-aprile-simbolo-anche-degli-stupri-di-massa/