In 1944, as Allied troops celebrated D-Day victory, a French family experienced a trauma that would be felt for generations: a murder and sexual assault so traumatic they are only now coming to terms with it.
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"This was a secret for all the family — my three sisters and my two brothers — nobody knew," Salaün says.Sexual violence committed by U.S. soldiers in the wake of D-Day has long been a taboo subject on both sides of the Atlantic. But as historians and victims' descendents have delved into the cases over time, the accounts have challenged some of Allied forces' heroic legacy, while also revealing official racial discrimination of the time.
" mayors were actually asked to put out a notice to civilians to come and watch African American soldiers being hanged for rape," she says."Clearly the Army wanted to impress on ordinary Normans that this was a situation which the U.S. Army had under control." "At that time, people didn't talk about rape. It was too intimate. It could not be admitted," says sister Jeannine Plassard.The French relatives say the thought of their young mother, Catherine Tournellec, being brought to witness his hanging increases their sadness.
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