LGBTQ* History In The News

Pride Month News You Should Know

(the following text from JPost.com)

Last gay Jewish Holocaust survivor dies

Gad Beck, a resistance fighter during World War II, passes away in Berlin days before his 89th birthday

BERLIN – Gad Beck, an anti-Nazi Zionist resistance fighter and the last known gay Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, died on Sunday in Berlin. He passed away in a senior citizens’ home six days before his 89th birthday, which would have been on June 30.

Beck was a pioneering gay activist and educator in a severely anti-homosexual, repressive post-World War II German society. He was famous for his witty, lively style of speaking.

On a German talk show, he said, “The Americans in New Yorkcalled me a great hero. I said no… I’m really a little hero.”

Perhaps the single most important experience that shaped his life was the wartime effort to rescue his boyfriend. Beck donned a Hitler Youth uniform and entered a deportation center to free his Jewish lover Manfred Lewin, who had declined to separate himself from his family.

The Nazis would later deport the entire Lewin family to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.

Speaking about his life as a gay Jew, Beck invoked a line frequently cited about homosexuality: “God doesn’t punish for a life of love.”

Read more HERE

For more KNOWhomo posts on the Pink Triangle/gay Holocaust persecution:

A Survivor’s Story — Read Here

Paragraph 175 — Read Here

Pink Triangle History — Read Here

(Upsetting) Post-Camp History — Read Here

Pink Triangle Memorial — Read Here 

Photo Blog Series — Look Here

Theatre/Play about Pink Triangles: Bent — Read Here

Graphic Novel, including a Hitler Youth Homosexual Relationship —Read Here

LGBTQ* History You Should Know

(and then what happened)

Following the liberation of concentration camps, many gay survivors (the pink triangles) were placed in prison by German authorities. Since concentration camps were not considered “jail,” homosexual men were still in violation of Paragraph 175 (a law outlawing homosexuality in Germany) and were then placed in prison to serve time for breaking the law.

To this day, not one single gay survivor or family member has been given financial payments by the government in Germany. 

LGBTQ* Film (History) You Should Know

Different From The Others (Anders Als Die Andern) — 1919

Arzt: Respected ladies and gentlemen take heed. The time will come when such tragedies will be no more. For knowledge will conquer prejudice, truth will conquer lies, and love will triumph over hatred.

* Partially funded by the Institute for Sex Research and Dr. Magnus Hirshfeld , who makes a cameo in the film

* One of the first explicitly gay films

* Follows a violin teacher who falls in love with one of his students

* Through a series of flashbacks, the audience follows Paul Körner  as he becomes aware of his sexual preference and methods he takes in which to suppress it over time

* One strong scene in the film follows Körner as he is reading the obituaries which are filled with suicides, though Körner knows many of the deaths are of gay men in the throws of Paragraph 175

* The film was not censored but filming was fear of government intervention led to the film being handled with extreme caution and little to no touching of its main characters. Attraction and relationships are shared through glances and lingering looks

You can watch it HERE. 

Thank you Love-Teatime for the link.

PARAGRAPH 175

German Criminal Code

May 1871 - March 1994

From 1871 - 1994, over 130,000 men were held/charged with violation of Paragraph 175.

For 123 years, this code criminalized homosexual acts between two men in Germany. It was with this law that homosexuals were persecuted during WWII in concentration camps.

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175. A male who commits lewd and lascivious acts with another male or permits himself to be so abused for lewd and lascivious acts, shall be punished by imprisonment. In a case of a participant /under 21 years of age at the time of the commission of the act, the court may, in especially slight cases, refrain from punishment.

175a. Confinement in a penitentiary not to exceed ten years and, under extenuating circumstances, imprisonment for not less than three months shall be imposed:

175b. Lewd and lascivious acts contrary to nature between human beings and animals shall be punished by imprisonment; loss of civil rights may also be imposed.

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