Union College Union | Digital Works Honors Theses Student Work 6-2014 Rape In World War II Memory Sonia Tiemann Union College - Schenectady, NY Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Military History Commons, and the Sexuality and the Law Commons Recommended Citation Tiemann, Sonia, "Rape In World War II Memory" (2014). Honors Theses. 605. https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses/605 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at Union | Digital Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Union | Digital Works. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Rape In World War II Memory By Sonia V. Tiemann Senior Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for Honors In the Department of History Department of History Union College March, 2014 ii Abstract This thesis examines why mass wartime rape occurred during World War II, as well as examining the reasons for the denial or elimination of rape from public memory. For purposes of analysis, the thesis has been broken down into four cases: rape by Japanese soldiers ⎯ the “comfort women,” rape by German soldiers, rape by the Russian Red Army, and rape by American soldiers in France. The study looks at different reasons that could help explain why soldiers rape during wartime and what provokes them to rape. Rape was quite prevalent during World War II, yet it is rarely acknowledged in discussion of the atrocities during this war.