Being a Gay Boy during WO2.. (Malchik Gay)
**by Rosa Crouch**
A/N: Please read this little article: it's very informative and shocking too. It's about the prosecution of gay men in the WO2.
World War II Season: The Pink Triangle
Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code of
1932 stated that any 'unnatural act' between two males would result in
imprisonment and possibly a 'loss of civil liberties'. During the Second World
War, over one hundred thousand men were charged with this offence. It is
estimated that over half were sent to prison. Of that number, ten to fifteen
thousand were transported to concentration camps. And only 'a handful'
survived.
This film, from the Oscar winning team of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman,
focused on a 'wartime generation that is fading away'. True if these stories
are not told now, they may never be told, but it does not make for easy
viewing. In this culture, one 'constructed of memories', a Canadian production
and research team found five men who had survived. I say survived, but it seems
like a strange word to apply. Oh it's sure that they did, but they are equally
crushed and angered by their experiences.
The film was the usual blend of black and white film of quaint looking German
hometowns, news footage of the Hitler rallies, and slow pans of the camera over
personal photographs, and the men seen as talking heads. While normally, I find
this style of presentation staid, it paled as these men revealed their ordeals.
Heinz Doemer, born in 1912, told of his time as a scout master. Backed with a
sepia-tinted film of scouts gambolling at camp, he told how he was beaten by
members of the Hitler Youth, who were wearing heavy knuckle dusters. Pierre
Seel, now 76 years old, explained how most homosexuals believed themselves to
be safe as some of Hitler's highest ranking officers were gay. 'Oh everybody
knew,' he said, pointing to Ernst Rein, the leader of the Brown Shirts, who was
killed - 'justifiably on account of his homosexuality' - during the Night of
the Long Knives. And Gad Beck, also 76, recalled how pupils in his class
continually referred to the smell of garlic around him, 'the first level of
insinuation of being Jewish.'
While Hitler was carefully stating that 'Private life cannot be an object
of scrutiny' - unless of course, it conflicted with Nationalist Socialist
ideology - the lesbian and gay bars were being closed down, followed by the
first transports to Dauchau, and then the book burnings. Propaganda leaflets
from anti-Nazi groups, well aware of the superior ranked homosexuals at
Hitler's right and left hand, showed them inspecting soldier's backsides and
mincing on parade. But the Nazis - particularly Himmler - stepped up
persecution, claiming that 7-8% of German men were gay and if homosexual sex
was allowed to continue, 'the nation would fall to pieces because of that
plague.'
The actual pink triangle that gay men were forced to display on their
uniforms was only briefly mentioned. Homosexuals were 'most often classified
as Aryan' but considered to be diseased. The 'cure' for this disease was
torture, castration and in many cases, death.
While Paragraph 175 was extended in 1935, lesbians were left off the Nazi's
wish list, 'disappearing quietly from view, undocumented and untraced.' As the
Nazis only saw all women as 'reproductive vessels' I was surprised to hear that
lesbians simply evaporated. Surely for the Aryan race to grow and eventually
conquer, they wanted as many women producing perfect little German Children of
the Damned. And the Nazis needed the gay men to resign to heterosexuality in
order to father these children, hence a number of 'reeducation programmes'. It
seems odd that the Nazis just ignored this equal 'threat', one which would
certainly 'deny German the children' that citizens 'owed', and simply did
not document lesbians in the way they did gay men.
Para 175 wasn't repealed until 1968-9. No-one persecuted by the Nazis has
received any form of reparation or legal recognition as a victim. And does the
Shoah Institute - Stephen Spielberg's project to record every possible
testament - recognise gay men or lesbians? The answer's no.
Maybe wisely, the full horrors were restricted for the viewing audience. The
stories were told mostly in quiet tones, as the men struggled for words or
wrestled with their minds to forget the images that accompanied them, or fought
against the biting loss of those close to them who were exterminated. 'It had a
different value then, love. A night of love,' said Seel. 'We said goodbye to
someone daily.'
Gad Beck told of dressing as Hitler Youth to rescue his lover, only to watch
him walk back into custody for the sake of his family. 'I knew,' Beck said,
staring into the distance and straining to speak without sobbing, 'that
something was forever broken.' One chap (unnamed by the film captions) told
of how his lover was eaten by dogs in front of 300 prisoners. Doemer told
how SS guards 'stuck 25cm of wood up my arse. Do you think I can talk
about that?' he asked, shaking with 40 years' worth of pent up anger. 'That
it's good for me? My nerves can't stand it. I'm ashamed for humanity. Ashamed.'
And so much remains untold.
©Megan Radclyffe Publ. Millivres 1998
A/N: (I bolded some of the most shocking, important senteces.) I was shocked after reading this. Ofcourse I 'knew' about the terrible things that happened in the camps, but I never read any particular information about the gay men in the camps. I'm truly engrossed. And I hope you all get the real view of this story; that I'm serious about it. Not only bringing you lovely, fluffy and mindblowing slash sex, but also a historical background of something terrible. I hope you'll still enjoy my story! A fresh chapter just up: have fun!
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