Violet Dench
The Traitor, War’s End, Chartres - France 1945
*on looking at a page in Robert Capa’s book Photographs
I wasn’t always like this
sullen, ugly, man-like
with my shaven head.
Je t’aime, je t’aime
he’d say in his clumsy French,
so stiff-necked and formal
in his uniform, I’d laugh.
The war seemed endless,
German soldiers everywhere.
Mother liked him,
we were hungry,
he, kind and generous.
Yes, take a photograph
if you want to.
Show the world.
What do I care?
Look at my father, he hides his face in shame,
but mother head shaved like mine,
loves the child. She is proud.
See how brightly her shoes are polished.
Am I so evil?
Tell me tell me,
You with the camera.
*In France at the end of World War 2, women who had collaborated with the enemy had their heads shaved by the local community. The father of this young woman’s baby was a German soldier.
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