Rudolf Brazda

Rudolf Brazda was born on June 26, 1913, in Brossen (now part of Meuselwitz, 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 worked at the local 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 demobilised 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 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. In the summer of 1933, 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, despite the Nazi accession to power and the subsequent reinforcement of Paragraph 175, 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 .

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 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, 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 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, 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...

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 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, 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 place of birth and his family who had stayed in Germany, Rudolf decided to follow the Frenchman in the latter's home country. Fernand 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, noticeably the Steinbach public garden where Pierre Seel, another homosexual deportee, had been identified by the French police shortly before the outbreak of World War II. In the early 1950s, Rudolf met Edi at a costume ball, who became his life companion. In the early 1960's they moved into a house they built in the suburbs of Mulhouse, where Rudolf still resides. 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 has 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 in Berlin, he decided to make himself known. Although he wasn't present at the monument's inauguration on May 27th, 2008, an invitation was extended to him to attend a ceremony a month later, on the morning of the Berlin CSD gay pride march. Since then, Rudolf has been 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 to the unveiling of a plaque in memory of Pierre Seel and others who were deported because of their homosexuality and was a guest of honour at a remembrance ceremony at Buchenwald . Saturday, September 25th 2010, Rudolf 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 ON THE GROUND OF THEIR HOMOSEXUALITY.

In 2010, Rudolf also received the gold medals of the cities of Toulouse and Nancy in recognition of his commitment to bear witness locally and nationally in France. In spite of his old age, and health permitting, Rudolf Brazda is determined to continue speaking out about his past , in the hope that younger generations remain vigilant in the face of present days behaviour and thought currents similar to those which led to the persecutions endured by homosexuals during the Nazi era.

Rudolf supports research work by French citizens group Les « Oublié(e)s » de la Mémoire who made him an honorary member on October 15th, 2008. His biography Itinéraire d'un Triangle rose (A pink Triangle's life journey; currently available in French only) is the testimony of the likely last survivor of those men who were marked by a pink triangle. It 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.

Bibliography

• Jean-Luc Schwab, Rudolf Brazda (2010). Itinéraire d'un Triangle rose (1st ed.). Éditions Florent Massot. ISBN 9782916546483.

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