Rudolf Brazda
Encyclopedia
Rudolf Brazda was the last known concentration camp survivor deported by Nazi Germany on charges of homosexuality. Brazda spent nearly three years at the Buchenwald concentration camp, where his prisoner uniform was branded with the distinctive pink triangle
Pink triangle
The pink triangle was one of the Nazi concentration camp badges, used to identify male prisoners who were sent there because of their homosexuality. Every prisoner had to wear a downward-pointing triangle on his or her jacket, the colour of which was to categorise him or her by "kind"...

 that the Nazis used to mark men interned as homosexuals. After the liberation of Buchenwald, Brazda settled in Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

, northeastern France, in May 1945 and lived there for the rest of his life.

Although other gay men who survived the Holocaust are still alive, they were not known to the Nazis as homosexuals and were not deported as pink triangle internees. At least two gay men who were interned as Jews, for instance, have spoken publicly of their experiences.

1913–1937: Caught in interwar upheaval

Brazda was born in Brossen (now part of Meuselwitz
Meuselwitz
Meuselwitz is a town in the Altenburger Land district, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated 12 km northwest of Altenburg and 11 km east of Zeitz.-History:...

, Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

, Germany), the last of eight siblings, born to parents originating in Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

 and who had emigrated to Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

 to earn a living (his father worked at the local brown coal mines). After World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, he became a Czechoslovak citizen, owing to his parents' origins in that newly established country. His father, who was demobilised only in 1919, died in 1922 following a work accident.

Brazda grew up in Brossen, later in nearby Meuselwitz where he started training as a roofer, failing to get an apprenticeship as a sales assistant with a gentlemen's outfitter. In the early 1930s, prior to the Nazis' accession to power, he was able to live his sexuality openly, thanks to the climate of relative tolerance which prevailed in the last days of the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

. In the summer of 1933, he met Werner, his first companion. Together they shared a sublease in the house of a Jehovah's Witness landlady, who was fully aware and tolerant of the bond existing between them. In the following two years, despite the Nazi accession to power and the subsequent reinforcement of Paragraph 175
Paragraph 175
Paragraph 175 was a provision of the German Criminal Code from 15 May 1871 to 10 March 1994. It made homosexual acts between males a crime, and in early revisions the provision also criminalized bestiality. All in all, around 140,000 men were convicted under the law.The statute was amended several...

, they led a happy life, befriending other male and female homosexuals, and would often take trips locally, or further away, to visit gay meeting places, such as the "New York" Café in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

.

In 1936, Werner was enlisted to do his military service and Brazda took up a position as bellhop
Bellhop
A bellhop, also bellboy or bellman, is a hotel porter, who helps patrons with their luggage while checking in or out. Bellhops often wear a uniform , like certain other page boys or doormen...

 at a hotel in Leipzig. As of 1935, the Nazis extension of legal provisions criminalizing homosexuality generated a dramatic increase of lawsuits against homosexuals. Thus, in 1937, following police investigations into the lives of his gay friends, Brazda was suspected and remanded in custody pending further enquiries. In Altenburg
Altenburg
Altenburg is a town in the German federal state of Thuringia, 45 km south of Leipzig. It is the capital of the Altenburger Land district.-Geography:...

, he was eventually tried and sentenced to six months in prison for breaching the terms of Paragraph 175. Werner was tried and sentenced elsewhere and circumstances led to them losing sight of each other in the ensuing months. Werner is rumoured to have died in 1940 while on military duty on the French front, in the battles raging against Britain.

1938–1941: Exiled in Sudetenland

Having served his sentence, Brazda was soon to be expelled from Germany, shortly after his release from prison in October 1937. From a legal and technical point of view, he was considered a Czechoslovak citizen with a criminal record and, as such, treated as persona non grata
Persona non grata
Persona non grata , literally meaning "an unwelcome person", is a legal term used in diplomacy that indicates a proscription against a person entering the country...

in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

, and made to leave the country. Because his parents had not taught him Czech, he left for what was technically his country, but opted to settle in the German-speaking region of Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...

, the western-most province of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

, bordering on Germany. There, he went to live in Karlsbad (today Karlovy Vary
Karlovy Vary
Karlovy Vary is a spa city situated in western Bohemia, Czech Republic, on the confluence of the rivers Ohře and Teplá, approximately west of Prague . It is named after King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who founded the city in 1370...

 in the Czech Republic).

Despite the province's annexation by Nazi Germany less than a year later, Brazda managed to find work as a roofer and settled in with a new friend by the name of Anton. Unfortunately, Brazda's name came up again in police enquiries led against distant gay acquaintances. In April 1941, he was imprisoned again on suspicion of homosexual activities, and later charged by a court in the town of Eger (today Cheb
Cheb
Cheb is a city in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic, with about 33,000 inhabitants. It is situated on the river Ohře , at the foot of one of the spurs of the Smrčiny and near the border with Germany...

 in the Czech Republic), following a new trial. In June 1942, instead of being released at the end of his second prison term, he was remanded in "Schutzhaft", or protective custody
Protective custody
Protective custody is a type of imprisonment to protect a prisoner from harm, either from outside sources or other prisoners. Many administrators believe the level of violence, or the underlying threat of violence within prisoners, is a chief factor causing the need for PC units...

, the first measure leading to his deportation to a KL (Konzentrationslager).

1942–1945: Buchenwald

Brazda was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...

 on August 8, 1942, and remained there until its liberation, on April 11, 1945. He was prisoner number 7952 and started with forced labour at the stone quarry, prior to being posted to a lighter task in the quarry's infirmary. Several months later, he joined the roofers unit, part of the "Bauhof" kommando
Kommando
Kommando is a generic German word meaning unit or command. During World War II it was also the basic unit of organisation of slave labourers in German concentration camps....

, in charge of maintaining the numerous buildings that constituted the camp (dormitories, barracks, administrative buildings, armament factories, etc.). On many occasions, Brazda was a witness of Nazi cruelty towards homosexuals as well as other detainees, aware of the fate awaiting a lot of them at the camp's revier
Revier
A revier in the language of Nazi camps was a barrack for sick concentration camp inmates. Most of the medical personnel were inmates themselves. The conditions in reviers varied drastically depending on the type of the camp.The German word Revier literally translates as a defined area or territory...

: it was not uncommon for sick prisoners or cripples to be executed by lethal injection at the sick bay.

With the help of a kapo
Kapo (concentration camp)
A kapo was a prisoner who worked inside German Nazi concentration camps during World War II in any of certain lower administrative positions. The official Nazi word was Funktionshäftling, or "prisoner functionary", but the Nazis commonly referred to them as kapos.- Etymology :The origin of "kapo"...

 who hid him in the early days of April 1945, shortly before the camp's evacuation, Brazda was able to avoid being sent away with thousands of prisoners. These forced evacuation measures turned into death marches for nearly half of them, who were shot on the spot if they were too weak to sustain the pace.

Within the roofers' kommando, Brazda had been able to make friends with other deportees, mostly communists, and in particular with Fernand, a Frenchman from Mulhouse
Mulhouse
Mulhouse |mill]] hamlet) is a city and commune in eastern France, close to the Swiss and German borders. With a population of 110,514 and 278,206 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 2006, it is the largest city in the Haut-Rhin département, and the second largest in the Alsace region after...

, in the Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

 province. After the camp's liberation, instead of returning to his place of birth and his family who had stayed in Germany, Brazda decided to follow the Frenchman to the latter's home country. Fernand had been deported on political grounds, having been involved in the International Brigades
International Brigades
The International Brigades were military units made up of volunteers from different countries, who traveled to Spain to defend the Second Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939....

 and fought between 1936 and 1938 in the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

. In May 1945, both eventually arrived in Mulhouse, shortly after VE Day. Brazda soon found employment again, still as a roofer.

After 1945: Life in France

Brazda decided to settle in southern Alsace and started visiting local gay cruising grounds, noticeably the Steinbach public garden where Pierre Seel
Pierre Seel
Pierre Seel was a gay Holocaust survivor and the only French person to have testified openly about his experience of deportation during World War II due to his homosexuality.-Biography:...

, another homosexual deportee, had been identified by the French police shortly before the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

In the early 1950s, at a costume ball, Brazda met Edouard "Edi" Mayer, who became his life companion. In the early 1960s, they moved into a house they built in the suburbs of Mulhouse, where Brazda resided until not long before his death. He tended to Edi for over 30 years after Edi was crippled by a severe work accident, until his death in 2003.

As of 2008: Public recognition of his life story

In spite of old age, he remained a keen observer and follower of the news. Thus, in 2008, when he heard on German TV of the impending unveiling of a memorial to homosexual victims of Nazism
Memorial to Homosexuals persecuted under Nazism
The Memorial to Homosexuals persecuted under Nazism in Berlin was opened on 27 May 2008.- Design of memorial :The Memorial was designed by artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset....

 in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, he decided to make himself known. Although he was not present at the monument's inauguration on May 27, 2008, an invitation was extended to him to attend a ceremony a month later, on the morning of the Berlin CSD gay pride march. Brazda subsequently was invited to attend a number of gay events, including Europride Zurich in 2009 and some smaller scaled events in France, Switzerland and Germany.

In 2010, Rudolf Brazda took part in Mulhouse in the unveiling of a plaque in memory of Pierre Seel
Pierre Seel
Pierre Seel was a gay Holocaust survivor and the only French person to have testified openly about his experience of deportation during World War II due to his homosexuality.-Biography:...

 and others who were deported because of their homosexuality and was a guest of honour at a remembrance ceremony at Buchenwald.

On Saturday, September 25, 2010, Brazda was symbolically present on the site of the former Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp on the occasion of a plaque unveiling ceremony. The plaque reads, "In Memory of the Victims of Nazi Barbarity, Deported Because of Their Homosexuality."

In 2010, Brazda also received the gold medals of the cities of Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...

 and Nancy in recognition of his commitment to bear witness locally and nationally in France. Brazda was determined to continue speaking out about his past, in the hope that younger generations remain vigilant in the face of present day behaviour and thought patterns similar to those which led to the persecutions endured by homosexuals during the Nazi era.

In recognition of his numerous contributions to public debates, media interviews and research articles, nationally and internationally, not least his involvement in a citizens group promoting awareness of homosexual deportation in France, Brazda was appointed Knight in the National order of the Legion of Honour, in the 2011 Easter honours list. He received his Knight insigna four days later from Marie-José Chombart de Lauwe, president of the French Foundation for the Remembrance of Deportation, in Puteaux
Puteaux
Puteaux is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located in the heart of the Hauts-de-Seine department from the center of Paris....

 (the city whose gold medal he also received on that occasion), in the presence, among others, of Raymond Aubrac
Raymond Aubrac
Raymond Aubrac is a French engineer, and was a member of the French Resistance.Born Raymond Samuel in Vesoul, Haute-Saône in a Jewish family, Aubrac and wife, Lucie in 1940 were in the Resistance in Lyon and took pseudonym Aubrac to escape the persecution of the occupation...

, a well-known French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...

 figure.

Brazda supported research work by the French citizens group Les « Oublié(e)s » de la Mémoire who made him an honorary member on October 3, 2008.

His original biography, Itinéraire d'un Triangle rose (A Pink Triangle's life journey; currently available in French, Portuguese, Spanish and Czech) is the only book he personally verified and authorised. It is the testimony of the likely last survivor of those men who were marked by a pink triangle
Pink triangle
The pink triangle was one of the Nazi concentration camp badges, used to identify male prisoners who were sent there because of their homosexuality. Every prisoner had to wear a downward-pointing triangle on his or her jacket, the colour of which was to categorise him or her by "kind"...

 and shows how Nazi repression of homosexuality directly impacted his life path. For the first time a book discloses the details of minute police investigations led to convict him and other homosexuals who had come under scrutiny. It also deals with issues such a human sexuality in concentration camps.

A German-language biography of Brazda also has been published: "Das Glück kam immer zu mir": Rudolf Brazda—Das Überleben eines Homosexuellen im Dritten Reich by Alexander Zinn (Campus Verlag, 2011). The book is currently available only in the original language.

Death

Brazda died on August 3, 2011, at the age of 98, at Les Molènes, an assisted living facility in the town of Bantzenheim
Bantzenheim
Bantzenheim is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-References:*...

 in northeastern France. His death was first announced by Yagg.com, a French gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender news and online community site, quoting his French biographer and last will's executor. Brazda's funeral was held on August 8, 2011, in Mulhouse, France. After a remembrance service attended by approximately 40 people, his body was cremated, and his ashes interred alongside those of his late partner Edouard Mayer, in the Cemetery of Mulhouse.

Tributes and memorials

Immediately following Rudolf Brazda's death, numerous organizations and officials in France paid tribute to his memory. Among those releasing statements were Marc Laffineur
Marc Laffineur
Marc Laffineur in Maubeuge is a French politician. He was a member of the National Assembly of France from 1988 to 2011, representing the Maine-et-Loire department, and is a member of the Union for a Popular Movement ....

, secretary of state for the Ministry of Defense and Veterans Affairs; the Socialist Party (France)
Socialist Party (France)
The Socialist Party is a social-democratic political party in France and the largest party of the French centre-left. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in France, along with the center-right Union for a Popular Movement...

; Ian Brossat, president of the French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...

/Left Party (France)
Left Party (France)
The Left Party is a French democratic socialist political party. It seeks to emulate the German political party Die Linke led by Gesine Lötzsch and Klaus Ernst.- History :...

 caucus of the Paris City Council; Jean-Luc Romero
Jean-Luc Romero
Jean-Luc Romero is a French politician, writer and NGO leader.-Biography:Since 1986, Romero is Parlement assistant of Pierre-Rémy Houssin , Jean-Marie Demange and Guy Drut . Since 2001, he is solidarity director at Vigneux-sur-Seine...

, president of Elus Locaux Contre le Sida (Local Elected Officials Against AIDS); the AIDS activist organization ACT UP–Paris; Les Oubli-é-es de la Mémoire; and the Mémorial de la Déportation Homosexuelle, a national French association that commemorates the homosexual victims of Nazi persecution.

Obituaries of Rudolf Brazda appeared in publications and on websites worldwide. English-language obituaries based on original reporting analysis were published by the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 (United States); Czech Position (Prague); the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

; The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

; RFI
Radio France Internationale
Radio France Internationale was created in 1975 as part of Radio France by the Government of France, and replaced the Poste Colonial , Paris Mondial , Radio Paris , RTF Radio Paris and ORTF Radio Paris...

 (France); The Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

 (London); UPI (United States); and numerous other media outlets.

On September 28, 2011, a national tribute ceremony to Rudolf was organised by Les « Oublié(e)s » de la Mémoire and patroned by Mr. Marc Laffineur
Marc Laffineur
Marc Laffineur in Maubeuge is a French politician. He was a member of the National Assembly of France from 1988 to 2011, representing the Maine-et-Loire department, and is a member of the Union for a Popular Movement ....

, Secretary of State for Defence and Veterans. It was held at Saint-Roch's Church, Paris, which houses a memorial chapel to victims of Deportation. Officials, diplomacy representatives, as well as militants and association representatives were in attendance. It was yet another opportunity to recall that in the last three years of his life, Rudolf had become a unique witness, and that remembering homosexual deportation today remains essential in the struggle against discriminations.

Obituaries


See also

  • Gad Beck
    Gad Beck
    Gad Beck is a retired educator, author and gay Holocaust survivor.-Early life:Beck was born in Berlin, Germany, along with twin sister Margot, to a Jewish father and German mother who had converted to Judaism. The family lived in a predominately Jewish immigrant section of the city...

  • Albrecht Becker
    Albrecht Becker
    Albrecht Becker was a production designer, photographer, and actor, who was imprisoned by the Nazi regime for the charge of homosexuality....

  • Heinz Dörmer
    Heinz Dörmer
    Heinz Dörmer was a German man who was imprisoned by the Nazis for homosexuality under Paragraph 175. He was repeatedly released and rearrested, spending more than ten years in a variety of concentration camps and prisons.-Early life:...

  • Karl Gorath
    Karl Gorath
    Karl Gorath was a gay man who was arrested in 1938 and imprisoned for homosexuality at Neuengamme and Auschwitz...

  • Karl Lange
    Karl Lange
    Karl Lange was imprisoned by the Nazis for the then crime of homosexuality under the criminal code's Paragraph 175, which defined homosexuality as an unnatural act....

  • Pierre Seel
    Pierre Seel
    Pierre Seel was a gay Holocaust survivor and the only French person to have testified openly about his experience of deportation during World War II due to his homosexuality.-Biography:...

  • Kurt von Ruffin
    Kurt von Ruffin
    Kurtis von Reidffin was a German actor and opera singer who was imprisoned by the Nazis for the crime of homosexuality.-Career:...

  • Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim
    Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim
    Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim was a German man who was imprisoned by the Nazis for the crime of homosexuality under Germany's now-repealed Paragraph 175. He was born in Lübeck, Germany.- Three imprisonments :...

  • Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust

External links


Mémorial de la Déportation Homosexuelle (French national association that commemorates the homosexual victims of the Nazi regime) Les Molènes (assisted living facility in Bantzenheim, France, where Rudolf Brazda died) Les « Oublié(e)s » de la Mémoire (French national association that commemorates the homosexual deportation & victims of Nazi repression)
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