Rudolf Brazda
Rudolf Brazda was born on 26 June 1913 in Brossen (currently in Thuringia, Germany). He is, to date, the last known survivor of homosexual deportation (resulting from indictments under Paragraph 175 of the German criminal code). He spent nearly three years at the Buchenwald concentration camp. His prisoner uniform was branded with the distinctive pink triangle.
LIFE
1913-1937: Caught in interwar upheaval
Rudolf Brazda was the last of eight siblings, born to parents originating in Bohemia and who had emigrated to Saxony to earn a living (his father was working in brown coal mines). After World War I, he became a Czechoslovak citizen, owing to his parents' origins in that newly established country. His dad, who was decommissioned in 1919 only, died in 1922 following a work accident.
Rudolf 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 1930's, 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. Shortly afterwards, he met Werner, his first companion. Together they shared a sublease in the house of Jehovah Witness landlady, who was fully aware and tolerant of the bond existing between them. In the following two years, they led a happy life, befriending other male and female homosexuals, and would often undertake trips locally, or further away, to visit gay meeting places (such as the "New York" Café in Leipzig). [1]
In 1936, Werner was enlisted to do his military service and Rudolf took up a position as bellhop at a hotel in Leipzig. As of 1935, the Nazi's extension of legal provisions criminalizing homosexuality generated a dramatic increase of lawsuits against homosexuals. Thus, in 1937, following police investigations into the lives of gay friends of his, Rudolf was suspected and remanded in custody pending further enquiries. In Altenburg, he was eventually tried and sentenced to six months in prison for breeching 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 rumored 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, Rudolf 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 in Nazi Germany, and made to leave the country. Because his parents hadn't taught him Czech, he left for what was technically his country, but opted to settle in the German-speaking region of Sudetenland, the western-most province of Czechoslovakia, bordering on Germany. There, he went to live in Karlsbad (today Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic).
Despite the province's annexation by Nazi Germany less than a year later, Rudolf managed to find work as roofer and settled in with a new friend by the name of Anton. Unfortunately, Rudolf'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 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, the first measure leading to his deportation to a KL (Konzentrationslager).
1942-1945: Buchenwald
Rudolf was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp on August 08, 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, in charge of maintaining the numerous buildings that constituted the camp (dormitories, barracks, administrative buildings, armament factories, etc.). On many occasions, Rudolf 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: it wasn't uncommon for sick prisoners or cripples to be executed by lethal injection at the sick bay... [2]
With the help of a kapo who hid him in the early days of April 1945, shortly before the camp's evacuation, Rudolf was able to avoid being sent away with thousands of other 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. [3]
Within the roofers' kommando, Rudolf had been able to make friends with other deportees, mostly communists, and in particular with Fernand, a Frenchman from Mulhouse, in the Alsace province. After the camp's liberation, instead of returning to his family who had stayed in Germany, Rudolf decided to follow Fernand. He had been deported on political grounds, having been involved in the International Brigades and fought between 1936 and 1938 in the Spanish Civil War. In May 1945, both eventually arrived in Mulhouse, shortly after VE Day. Rudolf soon found employment again, still as a roofer.
Since 1945: Life in France
Rudolf decided to settle in southern Alsace and started visiting local gay cruising grounds, most noticeably the Steinbach public garden, where, shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the life path of Pierre Seel (1923-2005), another deportee on the grounds of homosexuality, had been irretrievably changed. In the early 1950's, Rudolf chanced upon Edi on the occasion of a costume ball. Together they built a house in the suburbs of Mulhouse and this is where Rudolf still lives. For over 30 years, he tended to his partner, crippled by a severe work accident, who passed away in 2003. [4]
Having opted to be stateless after the war, Rudolf Brazda became a French citizen in 1960. Although he never held German citizenship, he speaks almost only German to this day.
In spite of old age, he has remained a keen observer and follower of the news. Thus, in 2008, when he heard on TV of the impending unveiling of a memorial to homosexual victims of Nazism in Berlin, he decided to make himself known.
Biographical researches are currently conducted, among others by Les "Oublié(e)s" de la Mémoire, a French society devoted to the recognition of homosexual deportation, in order to best render the life of the last known survivor of those men who were stigmatized by a pink triangle.
References
- ^ - "I'm Happy to be alive", International Tracing Service of the Red Cross in Bad Arolsen, Germany, November 25, 2009
- ^ Pierre Girard: "Rudolf Brazda - Nous, les triangles roses...", "We, the bearers of pink triangles...", Têtu, magazine number 140, January 2009
- ^ Florence Perret: LE "TRIANGLE ROSE" SURGI DE L'OUBLI, "A "pink triangle" emerges from oblivion", L'Hebdo, magazine number 23, June 04, 2009
- ^ Brigitte Hürlimann "Rudolf Brazda – mit dem rosa Winkel im KZ" "Rudolf Brazda - wearing a pink triangle at the concentration camp", Neue Zürcher Zeitung, June 05, 2009
External links
- Last Known Gay Holocaust Survivor Speaks Out in New Interview, The Advocate, December 23, 2008
- Template:Fr Short biography with current and vintage pictures of Rudolf Brazda
- Template:Fr French memorial society of homosexual deportation "Les "Oublié(e)s" de la Mémoire"
- Template:Fr 1st part of a filmed interview by local TV station Télé Doller
- Template:Fr 2nd part of a filmed interview by local TV station Télé Doller