A terrible plague has raged in Naples since the day the Allied armies entered as liberators in October 1943. It is a plague that corrupts not the body, but the soul; women are forced to sell themselves, and men sacrifice their self-respect. The city transforms into a hell of humiliation and offers horrific images of obscene horror. The unspeakable truth is that the plague lies in the helpful and friendly hands of the liberators. Their inability to recognize the mysterious, dark forces that rule Naples, and their conviction that a conquered people must be a nation of guilty, amplifies this tragedy. Nothing remains but the struggle for survival: not for the soul, as before, or for honor, freedom, or justice, but only for the filthy skin. Milan Kundera wrote in Malaparte's "The Skin": "With his words he hurts himself and others; the one who speaks is a man who suffers. Not a committed writer, but a poet."