| Original caption: “Woman accused of collaboration, Saint-Tropez, France.” When Allied Forces landed in Southern France on August 15, 1944, Constance Stuart (August 7, 1914 – July 27, 2000) — Larrabee after marrying in 1949 – was in Rome. A correspondent for Libertas Magazine, South Africa’s 1st illustrated documentary monthly. Larrabee was instrumental in portraying South African Prime Minister Jan C. Smuts (May 24, 1870 – September 11, 1950) post-war future of a “new South Africa” based on white paternalism that would coalesce into Apartheid after World War II. Libertas was staunchly anti-Fascist and pro-Allied in its propaganda. Stuart, who had photographed Nazi German Führer und Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) as a student in Munich in 1935, rushed to photograph the invasion of Southern France as South Africa’s Office of War Inforamtion’s official correspondent. Stuart served in Egypt, Italy, France and England, attached to the American 7th Army and the South African Royal Army 6th Infantry Division in the Italian Apennines until the end of the war. She had a positive attitude towards the Nazis during her years in Munich, and trained with Nazi photographers, eschewing her romantic style for detailed modernism. Stuart later denied agreeing with their racial theories. Larrabee wrote her mother, “I hope I see [Hitler] as I am a fervent admirer of him.” After a Schutzstaffel (SS) Christmas party in December 1935, she wrote “it was very interesting for me as I was among [Hitler’s] most enthusiastic supporters so felt quite German saying ‘Heil’ every time I was introduced to anyone.” Les femmes tondues (“The shaven women”) were rounded up after United States Army paratroopers and the Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur (FFI – “French Forces of the Interior”) liberated Saint-Tropez on August 17, 1944, 2 days after the invasion started. Approximately 34 women were accused of collaboration horizontale (literally “horizontal collaboration,” but implying sexual relationships with Nazi German soldiers). Stuart wrote in 1946, “these women who had turned into grotesque creatures with old men’s pates.” The FFI – mostly men – forced the women accused of relations with Nazi Germans to be shorn publicly. 1 by 1, each of the women, some of whom had only worked in places frequented by Nazi German officers and did not have sex with them, were shaved bald while the crowd jeered them. Some collapsed in tears on the shoulders of their mothers. Then the women and their children by Nazi Germans were lined up, photographed again, and paraded to the jeering residents of Saint-Tropez. The woman in this view is wearing a dress very similar or the same to others in Les femmes tondues; it is unclear what the uniform represents. Some 20,000 women were accused of collaboration horizontale, and publicly shaved; some were also stripped naked and sexually and physically abused. Chairman of the Provisional Government of the French Republic General Charles de Gaulle (November 22, 1890 – November 9, 1970) was appalled about these public displays of retribution and attempted to force the FFI to end them, without much success. Stuart was the official photographer of the United Kingdom King George VI’s (December 14, 1895 – February 6, 1952) visit to Lesotho in 1947. She married American Sterling Loop Larrabee in 1949. She continued to photograph the indigenous people of South Africa for over a decade, for which she was both praised and condemned for perpetuating white colonialist themes. She moved to the United States after the legalization of Apartheid in 1948. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0452.jpg |
| Image Size | 2.61 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 5924 x 6573 |
| Photographer | Constance Stuart |
| Photographer Title | Libertas Magazine |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | August 27, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | |
| State or Province | |
| Country | France |
| Archive | National Gallery of Art |
| Record Number | 2016.117.303 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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