‘Woman Unknown’: A Danish film about the price women paid for sleeping with the enemy

Why were women publicly punished for intimate relationships with German soldiers during Denmark’s occupation, while people who did business with the Nazis escaped similar treatment? That question lies at the heart of “Woman Unknown,” May el-Toukhy’s film competing for the Golden Lion at Venice.

El-Toukhy said the project began with photographs republished in a Danish newspaper. Dating from 1942 or 1943, one image showed a woman sitting on a bench with her clothes torn off and a swastika painted on her back. The scene, she learned, had been staged as propaganda and distributed during the war.

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It appeared to show a woman sitting on a bench. Her clothes had been torn off, there was something slightly sexual, even pornographic, about it, and she had a swastika painted on her back.

The photographs were intended to show society what to do with women who had relationships with German soldiers, El-Toukhy said. They may also have served as a warning to women not to use their bodies in ways that could bring them trouble. The film explores this neglected aspect of the war from a woman’s perspective, asking why women who may have fallen in love with Nazi soldiers were treated differently from those who collaborated through business.

The film received strong applause at the festival. Its lead actress, Mathilde Arcel Fock, said she had heard about the so-called “German girls” at school as a child, but had regarded the subject as a minor detail. Reading diaries and anonymous interviews later showed her how widespread the experiences were and how many people lived through them.

“I remember hearing about the so-called ‘German girls’ at school as a child, but it was always presented as a minor detail that I knew little about,” Fock said. “The more I read the diaries of these women and anonymous interviews with them, the clearer it became how widespread it was and how many people experienced it.”

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I remember hearing about the so-called ‘German girls’ at school as a child, but it was always presented as a minor detail that I knew little about. The more I read the diaries of these women and anonymous interviews with them, the clearer it became how widespread it was and how many people experienced it.

Fock said the film gives its central character a hidden past and a major secret because many women who lived through those events have never told even their families. El-Toukhy also said some women interviewed for the project still fear that someone will knock on their door each year during Denmark’s Liberation Day celebrations, despite now being more than 90 years old. “It is heartbreaking,” she said.

El-Toukhy has deliberately left the film open to interpretation, saying different viewers will feel different things when they watch it.

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They are afraid that someone will knock on their door, even though they are now more than 90 years old. It is heartbreaking.