Root & Branch: Gay Survival and the Holocaust

In his essay titled “The Concept of Resistance: Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust” Professor of Philosophy Roger S. Gottlieb highlights three crucial parts of what might be considered a resistant event. For there to be resistance there must first be something to resist against. Gottlieb states that resistance is “typically the act of an already conquered or defeated people,” meaning in any gi...

One might expect when the Nazi atrocities waged against Jewish life in Berlin began to take deadly turns, Jews would then begin to renounce their faith in droves; however, Hitler's violence bolstered Zionist Jewish faith, as well as the creation and cultivation of hachsharas —Zionist training centers to prepare Jews for their migration back to the homeland of Israel, also known as their aliyah...

Far removed from the insidious prison camp of Schirmeck begins the heroic tale of Gad Beck who grew up within the very epicenter of the second World War: Berlin. What follows is the story of a proud, flamboyant, and fearless boy who carried not only the title of Homosexual, but also that of a mischling, or half-breed (being half Christian and half Jewish). As the war ravaged, and Hitler turned his...

The havoc wreaked by the Third Reich continued well past the demise of the Nazis. As the years grew further apart from his "liberation," Pierre faces not only the war for his Identity, but also the war for his life. Uncertainty, alcoholism, and attempts to stifle and silence Gay survivor stories are just a few of the battles ahead. But to know a witness is to be a witness, and Pierre will...

Robbed of the possibility of his own Identity, Pierre travels beyond the walls of Schirmeck Prison Camp to find freedom and global sympathizing is allotted to Holocaust survivors & victims. But not Homosexual Holocaust survivors & victims.

A stroke of circumstance—or fate—puts 15-year-old Pierre Seel into the hands of a thief. Three years later and the German Gestapo are knocking on his door. What follows can only be imagined by others, but for Pierre was a personal hell, a monstrous repression, the murder of love, and the loss of his Identity; all of which he suffered in a devouring silence.

1920-1934 Considered the greatest genocide in history by death toll, the Holocaust is an event unique not only in its numbers, but also in its growth from the desire for more conservative values to the eventual annihilation of over 10 million people. Retrace the people, events, and sinister circumstances that gave way to the systematic, state sanctioned murder of groups like Jews, Gypsies, and Jeh...