Last week the queer blogosphere mourned the death of Rudolf Brazda, the man believed to be the last “pink triangle” survivor of the Nazi Holocaust. But according to Alice Murray, director of the Dallas Holocaust Museum, “she got word of another gay survivor who is still alive. His name is Gad Beck, and he was profiled in the film Paragraph 175.”
The Dallas Voice reports:
Although Beck was half-Jewish, he managed to escape detention and deportation to a concentration camp. During the war, he used his non-Jewish gay connections to get food and supply hiding places to Jews escaping to neutral Switzerland. He was betrayed by a Jewish Gestapo spy and arrested in 1945. He was held in a Jewish transit camp in Berlin until the end of the war.
After the war, he helped Jewish survivors emigrate to Palestine. In 1947, he left Germany and moved to Palestine himself. He lived in Israel until 1979 when he moved back to Berlin, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Somebody write this guy’s biography before he keels over!
gregger
I watched an interview with him several years ago. He is amazing. Glad to hear that he is still a voice in the world.
Mark Meinke
Beck is well-covered in film and in print. See the film at http://www.gad-beck.de/index_en.html. He has spoken at the Holocaust Memorial and Museum here in DC.
Mark Meinke
I forgot to add that his own memoirs were published in 1999: AN UNDERGROUND LIFE
The Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin
Schlukitz
@Mark Meinke:
A Google search reveals that there appears to be a wealth of information about Gad Beck on the Internet as well as numerous references to the film “The Story of Gad Beck” which was apparently made in Germany.
Being of German parentage and having obtained a copy of the DVD “Paragraph 175”, I was very interested in viewing this film as well.
Unfortunately, a perusal of both IMDB and Amazon does not bring up any mention of this film or it’s availability here in the USA.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how/where one could go about obtaining a copy of it?
Tony
@Schlukitz. Netflix used to have it, I know because I rented it.
But, now they claim not to have it. I guess just another example of Netflix trying to get out the DVD rental business.
Amazon has it but, the DVD runs from $80 to $83. There were VHS copies from $7.17 though.
Schlukitz
@Tony:
Thank you, Tony. I’ll check that out.
outsidethelines
Terrible journalism. Queers deserve a better source of news than this smut filled rag can deliver.
Craig
Good on your queerty for correcting the misreporting.
Joey
@Schlukitz:
The movie “The Story of Gad Beck” in German: “Die Freiheit des Erzaehlens. Die Geschichte von Gad Beck” seems not to be published on DVD at all. Obvious there is just a German copy that can be rented by cinemas.
Joey
@Schlukitz:
The movie “The Story of Gad Beck” in German: “Die Freiheit des Erzaehlens. Die Geschichte von Gad Beck” seems not to be published on DVD at all. Obviously there is just a German copy that can be rented by cinemas.
Joey
Sorry, its: “Die Freiheit des Erzaehlens. Das Leben des Gad Beck”
Fagburn
Tasteful.
Schlukitz
@Joey:
Odd, isn’t it. Joey? My Amazon and Google searches, using a variation of titles in both English and German, brought me to the exact same conclusion as yours.
I even tried “The Life of Gad Beck” since the German word leben translates to living or life. No luck with that either.
Not to dispute the information Tony was kind enough to provide for us, it may have been available on DVD at one time but it is possible that it is now out of print, as often happens with titles that don’t receive enough attention to keep it in stock.
Oh well. We tried. Guess we’ll just have to settle for the book. ;P
I thank you both for your efforts. It was very kind of you.