Hidden Holocaust: Gay and Lesbian Persecution in Germany 1933-455

The persecution of lesbians and gay men by the Nazis is a subject that has been constantly debated during the last decade, providing a theme for books, articles, and plays. Until recently the discussion has remained speculative: most of the relevant documents were stored in closed East German archives, and access was denied to scholars and researchers. As a result of the unification of East and West Germany, these archives are now open. Hidden Holocaust? , by the German scholars Gnnter Grau and Claudia Shoppmann of Humboldt University in Berlin, is a compilation (with commentary) of these formerly unseen/unpublished documents and is organized as a year-by-year record of the Nazi terror under which gay minorities were forced to live during 1933-1945 and thereafter: the anti-gay discrimination act under which the Nazis operated was not repealed until 1994, and the Bonn government refused to recognize lesbians and gay men as victims of the Holocaust until the late 1980s. Grau and Shoppmann demonstrate that the eradication of homosexuals was a declared goal of the Nazis even before they took power in 1933, and provide proof of systematic anti-gay campaigns, expose the methods used to justify discrimination, and detail the incarceration, mutilation, and murder of gay men and women in Nazi concentration camps. A chilling but ground-breaking work in gay and lesbian studies.