Heinz Heger
Josef Kohout (24 January 1915 – 15 March 1994) was an
Kohout's book inspired the 1979 play Bent, by Martin Sherman,[5] which was made into the movie Bent, directed by Sean Mathias, in 1997.
Biography
Kohout was born and grew up in
Several sources,[2][7] including his own account, mention that the German penal code's Paragraph 175 was the basis of Kohout's incarceration. However, since he was convicted by an Austrian court and Paragraph 175 did not apply for Austrian citizens, he was convicted on basis of the Austrian penal code.[1]
Incarceration
Kohout was interned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in January 1940 after having served a six-month sentence. In May 1940, Kohout was transferred from Sachsenhausen to Flossenbürg, in Bavaria, where he remained until his liberation in 1945.[1]
He reported that homosexual prisoners were the most reviled of all the camp's detainees, and prevented from mutual association.
Like other prisoners, Kohout was assigned futile tasks during his time in the camp, including using wheelbarrows to move the snow (and bare hands to move rocks) from one side of the compound to the other and back again.[5] The repetition and pointlessness of the tasks were such that many prisoners committed suicide.[5] Kohout observed the beating and the torture of prisoners,[8] and theorized in his writings that the sadism of some of the SS officers reflected repressed homosexual desires of their own.[3]
Liberation
Flossenbürg was liberated by the
He was eventually reunited with his mother. His father had committed suicide in 1942,[3] leaving a note for his wife, Amalia, asking "May God protect our son".[11]
In 1946 he met his partner, with whom he stayed until his death in 1994.[1]
The book
Hans Neumann conducted 15 interviews with Kohout between 1965 and 1967 and wrote the book on basis of these conversations using the pseudonym Heinz Heger.[1] The book was eventually published in 1972 by Merlin Verlag. As well as describing the barbarism of life within the camp, Neumann/Heger's book offered criticism of the treatment of homosexual concentration camp survivors after liberation.[6] After the camp's liberation, Kohout – like other homosexual prisoners – was still regarded as a criminal, since homosexuality remained illegal after the demise of the Nazi regime. He was not eligible for compensation and, despite attempts on his part, he received none from the West German government.[12] Many other gay men who had survived concentration camps were returned to prison, and the time they had spent interred in the camps was not deducted from their sentences.[2][failed verification]
The book remains one of very few that document the experiences of homosexuals imprisoned by the Nazis.[13] It is taught and read in college courses internationally, including at universities[14] and Jewish seminaries.[15]
Erik Jensen, writing in the Journal of the History of Sexuality, identifies the publication of Kohout's memoir as a turning point in the history of the gay community, when the activists of the 1960s and 1970s began to take account of the perspectives of the preceding generation and to embrace the pink triangle as a symbol of gay identity.[16]
Legacy
Kohout died in Vienna, and certain items of his possessions were donated by his partner to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He included Kohout's journals from the camp, a number of letters sent by his parents that never reached him while he was imprisoned, and the cloth strip with the pink triangle and his prisoner number that he had been forced to wear. It was the first pink triangle belonging to an identifiable individual that was collected by a museum.[2]
See also
- Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany
- Pierre Seel – a French, LGBT, Nazi-persecuted writer
References
- ^ ISBN 978-3-8258-9785-7.
- ^ a b c d e f Dunlap, David (26 June 1995). "Personalizing Nazis' Homosexual Victims". New York Times.
- ^ ISBN 0-87586-355-8. Retrieved 22 June 2009.
- ISBN 1-56023-955-7.
- ^ ISBN 0-8058-3812-0.
- ^ a b Plagne, Nicolas (26 June 2006). "Les Hommes au triangle rose review" (in French). Parutions.com.
- United States Holocaust Museum. Archived from the originalon 23 July 2009. Retrieved 22 June 2009.
- ISBN 0-8264-7768-2.
- ^ "Robert W. Hacker, "Knocking the Lock Off the Gate at the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp; April 23, 1945," excerpted from Robert W. Hacker: Flossenbürg Concentration Camp, Phoenix 2000, unpublished manuscript. Flossenbürg memorial archive". 97thdivision.com. Archived from the original on 2021-05-11. Retrieved 2012-05-17.
- ^ "Memories of the chaplain to the US 97th Infantry Division at the online Museum of the division in WWII". 29 May 2011.
- ^ "The pink triangle, Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals". RAI Social Action Department. Archived from the original on 2 July 2009. Retrieved 22 June 2009.
- ISBN 0-304-33147-3.
- ^ Schlagdenhauffen-Maika, Regis (2005). "The New Holocaust History Museum of Yad Vashem and the Commemoration of Homosexuals as Victims of Nazism". Bulletin du Centre de recherche français de Jérusalem (16): 244–261.
- ^ "Fascism and Sexuality seminar" (PDF). Retrieved 22 June 2009.
- ^ "Bibliography: LGBT and Jewish" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 July 2009. Retrieved 22 June 2009.
- S2CID 142580540.
External links
- "Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 2009-09-03.