Pierre Seel
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Pierre Seel | |
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Born | Haguenau, Bas-Rhin | 16 August 1923
Died | 25 November 2005 Toulouse, Haute-Garonne | (aged 82)
Known for | Gay Holocaust survivor |
Pierre Seel (16 August 1923 – 25 November 2005) was a
Biography
Pierre was the fifth and last son of an affluent
In 1939, he was in a public garden (le Square Steinbach) notorious as a "
In Schirmeck-Vorbrück
On 3 May 1941, Seel was arrested. He was tortured and raped with a piece of wood.[1] He was then sent to the city jail before being transferred on 13 May 1941 to the Schirmeck-Vorbrück camp, about 30 km west of Strasbourg. His prison uniform was marked with a blue bar (marking Catholic and "a-social" prisoners) rather than the infamous pink triangle which was not in use at Schirmeck. He later noted: "There was no solidarity for the homosexual prisoners; they belonged to the lowest caste. Other prisoners, even when between themselves, used to target them." During his stay in the camp he also witnessed the execution of his eighteen-year-old lover, Jo, by means of assault from a pack of dogs.[2]
On 6 November 1941, after months of starvation, ill treatment and forced labour, Seel was set free with no explanation and made a German citizen. He was sworn to secrecy about his experience by Karl Buck, the commander of the camp. He was made to report daily to the Gestapo offices.
The rest of the war
Between 21 March and 26 September 1942, Seel was forced to join the RAD (
On 15 October 1942, he was incorporated to the
In spring 1943, to his bemusement, Seel was sent to Pomerania to a Lebensborn, one of a dozen places in the Reich dreamed up by Heinrich Himmler and dedicated to breeding a new race according to the Nazis' standards of Aryan "purity". Young, healthy couples were encouraged to procreate and give their children to the Reich. He only stayed there a few days.
In summer 1943, he volunteered to join the
While things started to unravel for the Reich, Seel was sent to Smolensk on the Russian front. After having allowed the horse of the officer he was serving to run away, Seel was sent to a dangerous and exposed position alone with another Alsatian. The enemy kept on firing at them and soon Seel's companion was killed. He spent three days there, close to madness, believing himself forgotten.
As the German debacle was becoming imminent, his commanding officer invited him to desert with him. Soon after, the officer was killed and Seel found himself alone and decided to surrender to the Soviet troops and started to follow them west. Somewhere in Poland, however, he found himself arrested and threatened to be shot as a part of a reprisal execution after the murder of an officer. He saved his life by stepping forward in front of the firing squad and starting to sing the Internationale.
In Poland, Seel parted ways with the Russian army and joined a group of concentration camp survivors soon to be brought back to France. The
After a long wait in Odessa for a boat to take him back to France, "Pierre Celle" finally arrived in Paris on 7 August 1945 after a train journey through Europe, via Romania, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. Again, Seel found himself requisitioned for an administrative task, in this case, the ticking of the long lists of other refugees being sent home.
On reaching Mulhouse, Seel realized that he would have to lie about his true story and, like all the others, lie about the reasons for his deportation. "I was already starting to censor my memories, and I became aware that, in spite of my expectations, in spite of all I had imagined, of the long-awaited joy of returning, the true Liberation, was for other people."[3]
After the war
After the end of the war, the
After starting to work as a stock manager at a fabric warehouse, Seel set up an association to help the local destitute families by giving out food and clothes. He also cared for his ageing and ailing mother, with whom he grew close and the only person to whom he related his experience for over thirty years. For four years, the beginning of what he called the years of shame, Seel led a life of "painful sadness", during which he slowly came to decide that he must renounce his homosexuality. Following in his parents' footsteps, he contacted a dating agency and on 21 August 1950, he civilly married the daughter of a
Their first child was still-born, but they eventually had two sons (1952 and 1954) and a daughter (1957). In 1952, for the birth of their second child, they moved near Paris, in the Vallée de Chevreuse, where Seel opened a fabric store which was not successful. He soon had to find work in a larger Parisian textile company. The family got involved with the local Catholic community. Seel found it difficult to relate to his children; he felt remote from his last born, while he did not know how to express his love for his two boys without it being misinterpreted.
The 1960s offered little stability to the family with moves to Blois, Orléans, Compiègne, Rouen and back to Compiègne, following Seel's career. This instability put further strains on his marriage. In 1968, Seel found himself trapped for four days in the besieged Sorbonne when he was sent as observer by his local Parents Association. He then went down to Toulouse where he was to check the family's new flat attached to his wife's new job in the administration. There, he was arrested under suspicion of stirring the young demonstrators. The family finally settled in Toulouse.
During the next ten years, Seel grew further apart from his wife, tormented by feelings of inadequacy, shame, and confusion about his sexuality. By the time he and his wife separated in 1978, he was already under
Speaking out
In 1981, the testimony collected by Jean-Pierre Joecker (director and founder of the gay magazine Masques) was published anonymously in a special edition of the French translation of the play
On 9 April 1989, Seel returned to the sites of the Schirmeck and
From the time he came forward publicly until the end of his life, Seel was active as an advocate for the recognition of homosexual victims of the Nazis—and notably of the forgotten homosexual victims from the French territories of Alsace and Moselle, which had been annexed by Nazi Germany.[4] Seel came to be known as the most outspoken activist among the men who had survived internment as homosexuals during the Third Reich.[4] He was an active supporter of the Mémorial de la Déportation Homosexuelle, a French national association founded in 1989 to honor the memory of homosexuals persecuted by the Nazi regime and to advocate formal recognition of these victims in the ceremonies held annually to commemorate citizens and residents of France deported to the concentration camps.[4]
Seel found himself repeatedly under attack in the 1980s and 1990s, even receiving death threats. After he appeared on French television, he was attacked and beaten by young men shouting anti-homosexual epithets.
In 1994, Seel published the book Moi, Pierre Seel, déporté homosexuel (I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual), written with the assistance of journalist and activist
Legacy
Seel's story was featured in
In 2003, Seel received official recognition as a victim of
In 2005, A Love to Hide (French title: Un amour à taire), a French made-for-television film, was released, directed by Christian Faure. It is loosely based on Seel's memoir Moi, Pierre Seel, déporté homosexuel and is dedicated to him.
In June 2019, Paris, France named a street Pierre Seel Street.[7]
Gallery
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Rue Pierre Seel in Toulouse: street named after Pierre Seel
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Pierre Seel Street plates, in Toulouse, both in French (top) and Occitan (bottom)
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Another aspect of the Pierre Seel Street plates, in Toulouse
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Memorial plate on a façade of the Mulhouse City Theatre
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Street sign in Paris
See also
- Gad Beck
- Albrecht Becker
- Rudolf Brazda
- Heinz Dörmer
- Karl Gorath
- Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim
- Wilhelm Heckmann
- Il Rosa Nudo, a film by Giovanni Coda based on Pierre Seel's autobiography.
- LGBT history in France
- LGBT rights in France
- Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust
- Kurt von Ruffin
References
- ^ Pierre Seel (2000). Paragraph 175 (Documentary). Event occurs at 63 min.
The Nazis stuck 25 centimeters of wood up my ass (translation from the subtitles)
- ^ I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual, Basic Books, 1995, p. 42–44
- ^ Moi, Pierre Seel, déporté homosexuel, Calmann Levy, 1994, p 110. translated by wikieditor.
- ^ a b c Gerard Koskovich, "Gay Concentration Camp Survivor Pierre Seel Dies,'" Bay Area Reporter (Dec. 15, 2005).
- ^ "inauguration de la Rue Pierre Seel le 23 fvrier - Toulouse". E-llico : toute l'actu LGBT francophone.
- ^ "Attribution d'une rue toulousaine Pierre-SEEL - Les "Oubli(e)s" de la Mmoire". Archived from the original on 2012-02-10. Retrieved 2008-01-28.
- ^ "Paris names squares and streets for LGBTQ icons | CNN Travel". Cnn.com. 2019. Retrieved 2019-07-03.
Bibliography
- Moi, Pierre Seel, déporté homosexuel, Éditions Calmann-Lévy (1994), ISBN 2-7021-2277-9
- I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual, Basic Books (August 1, 1995), ISBN 0-465-04500-6, 208 pp
- Liberation Was for Others: Memoirs of a Gay Survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, Vol. 2, ISBN 0-306-80756-4, 576pp
- Les oubliés de la mémoire, Jean Le Bitoux, Hachette Littératures (24 avril 2002), ISBN 2-01-235625-7, 291pp
- De Pierre et de Seel, Pierre Seel and ISBN 1-4348-3696-7
External links
- Pierre Seel: The Death of His Lover selection of extracts from the autobiography
- Washington Post obituary - 2 December 2005
- The Independent obituary - 9 December 2005
- Bay Area Reporter obituary - 15 December 2005
- NPR, All Things Considered - Filmmaker Rob Epstein remembers Pierre Seel - 2 December 2005 (audio file)
- Pierre Seel, Interview (in French)
- Extracts from the book (in French)
- Triangles roses (in French)
- Mémorial de la Déportation Homosexuelle (in French)