Born into a Jewish-Christian
family in 1923, Gad lived a seemingly untroubled childhood.
After 1933, however, he and his twin sister Miriam were
labeled half-Jewlish and experienced growing anti-semitism.
The harassment became so intolerable that Gad convinved
his parents to send him to a Jewish boys' school in 1935.
Gad had his first male-male sexual experience at
school, seducing a sports teacher. He proudly boasted
about his conquest to his mother, with a frankness that
became typical for him. Hardly surprised, his parents
accepted his homosexuality.
In 1941, Gad --
then eighteen years old -- joined "Chug Chaluzi,"
an underground Jewish resistance group in Berlin that organized
hiding places and food for Jews. In 1942, Gad tried
to liberate his lover, Manfred, from a Gestapo transfer
camp by posing as a Hitler Youth member. His dangerous
charade was successful, but as they walked away, Manfred
told Gad he could not abandon his family. Gad watched
helplessly as his friend returned to the camp. This
was the last time he would see Manfred, who left behind
a
journal of his brief life.
In 1944, Gad became head of his resistance group, and was
imprisoned when the group was betrayed, shortly before the
russians liberated Berlin.
After the war, Gad went to Munich and worked with Ben-Gurion
in the displaced persons camps, counting survivors and preparing
them for emigration to Palestine. He emigrated to
Israel in 1947 together with his lover. In 1979, he
returned to Berlin to work with the head of the German Jewish
community, Heinz Galinski. In the 1980s and '90s Gad
became more and more open about his homosexual orientation
and has given many public presentations in Europe and the
U.S.
Born
in Berlin in 1912, Heinz Dörmer spent his early years in
church-related youth groups. By 15, he was living
the wild life in Berlin's gay bars and discovered a passion
for theater -- and actors.
In
1929, he founded his own youth group, the so-called "Wolfsring"
(ring of wolves), and in 1931 he was officially recognized
as a "youth leader." The work in the group
connected many of Heinz's interests: sexual affairs, amateur
theater performances, and travel. In 1932, Heinz was
promoted and worked on the Scout movement at the national
level. When the Nazis started to force all independent
youth groups into the Hitler Youth, Heinz and his group
tried to stay independent. In October, 1933, however,
they capitulated to brute force, and joined the Hitler Youth.
In
April, 1935, Heinz was accused of homosexual activities
with members of his troop. Thus began a series of
arrests for Paragraph 175 and incarcerations in concentration
camps and prisons. After his last release in 1963,
he returned to Berlin to live with his father, who died
in 1970. Throughout the years Heinz follwed the discussions
about homosexual persecution during the Nazi regime.
In 1982, he applied for reparations from the German government.
His application was rejected.
When
Alsace-Lorraine was annexed by the Germans in 1940, the
Nazis systematically began to weed out "anti-social"
elements. They directed the French police to establish
the notorious "Pink Lists" to keep track of homosexuals.
One of their targets was 17-year-old Pierre Seel.
Pierre was arrested after reporting a theft that occurred
in a homosexual club. He was interrogated both about
his sexuality and about his suspected involvement in resistance
activities before being sent to the internment camp at Schirmeck.
While there he was forced to build crematoria, at Struthof,
a neighboring concentration camp, and was violated with
broken rulers and used as a human dart board by camp orderlies
with syringes. At the end of 1941, Pierre and thousands
of other Alsatians were forced to join the German army.
This was the ultimate humiliation: to be forced to fight
on the side of the enemy. Having survived several
allied bombings, he was eventually taken prisoner by the
Russians, who gave him his freedom. After the war
he was allowed back into his family under the condition
that he never reveal the true circumstances of his arrest.
He went into a downward spiral, entering a marriage of convenience
and eventually becoming suicidal -- until deciding to take
a stand and make his story public.
Born in 1905 in
a small town near Hannover, Germany, Heinz F. completed
high school and studied law. He spent time in Berlin
during the 20s and 30s, where he frequented such gay clubs
as The Owl, The Olivia, and the Eldorado. He met Magnus
Hirschfeld in Berlin. Eventually he lived as an artist
in Munich. There he met a subordinate of Ernst Röhm
who tried to lure him into the SA by promising him a good
career. Heinz declined.
In 1935, one of
his friends was arrested and, under pressure from the Gestapo,
revealed the names of other homosexuals. Heinz was
working in his family's store when he was called in by the
local police. He was arrested and sent, without a
trial, to a concentration camp at Dachau. This began
a series of arrests and confinements in prisons and concentration
camps for nearly nine years.
The war ended when
Heinz was 40 and he went home. He found no one with
whom to speak about his years of captivity. Now 93,
Heinz tells his story for the first time in Paragraph
175.
Born in 1906 in
a small town in the mountains of Germany, Albrecht always
had an eye for a bigger life. Exceptionally handsome
and a snappy dresser, he attracted attention wherever he
went. At eighteen, he fell in lover with an older
(40ish) man, with whom he lived for nearly ten years.
Through him, he met an array of artists and influential
people who took him on travels around the world and showed
him a life of culture and sophistication.
When he was brought
in for questioning in 1935 on suspicion of violating Paragraph
175, Albrecht declared, "Everybody knows I'm a homosexual."
He was sentenced to three years in prison at Nürnberg
which he describes as a monastic life of study and thought.
When released to his home town, he found all the men were
gone, either to the army or to prison. Surrounded
by women, he decided to join the German army -- because
"that's where all the men were!" Throughout
the years, he has been an avid photographer of himself and
others.
Born
in 1909 to an educated, Jewish family in Berlin, Annette
discovered her lesbian identity when she was ten: "We had
to write a composition about how we imagined our later life
would be, and I wrote: I want to live in the country
with an elderly girlfriend and have a lot of animals. I
don't want to get married and I don't want to have children,
but I'll write." In the 1920s, Annette was active in
lesbian cultural life in Berlin, spending time in women's
clubs and occasionally writing poetry and short stories
for a lesbian journal. As the Nazis gained power, Annette
managed to emigrate to England, with the help of an older
woman she had met at a bar and whom she had a crush on.
She later learned that her parents had been killed at Auschwitz.
She eventually settled in the English countryside with her
lover of many years, and wrote poetry.
