Gad Beck

Gad Beck
Born Gerhard Beck
(1923-06-30)30 June 1923
Berlin, Germany
Died 24 June 2012(2012-06-24) (aged 88)
Berlin, Germany
Citizenship German
Occupation Educator, activist, author
Years active 1947–2012
Known for Last gay Holocaust survivor
Home town Berlin, Germany
Religion Jewish
Partner(s) Julius Laufer[1]
(1977–2012; his death)
Family Margot Beck (sister)

Gerhard "Gad" Beck (30 June 1923 – 24 June 2012)[2] was an educator, author, activist, and survivor of the Holocaust.

Life and career

Beck was born Gerhard Beck[3] in Berlin, Germany, along with twin sister Margot,[4] the son of Hedwig (née Kretschmar) and Heinrich Beck. His father was born Jewish, and his German mother, originally a Protestant, had converted to Judaism.[5] The family lived in a predominately Jewish immigrant section of the city. At age five, he and his family moved to the Weissensee district where he attended primary school and was the target of antisemitism from classmates. In 1934, he was enrolled in a Jewish school but had to quit and take a job as a shop attendant.[6]

As a person with a partial Jewish ancestry (as the Nazis termed, Mischling) Beck was not deported with other German Jews. Instead, he remained in Berlin.[6] He recalls in his autobiography borrowing a neighbor’s Hitler Youth uniform[7] and marching into the pre-deportation camp where his lover, Manfred Lewin, had been arrested and detained. He asked the commanding officer for the boy's release for use in a construction project, and it was granted. When outside the building; however, the boy declined, saying, "Gad, I can't go with you. My family needs me. If I abandon them now, I could never be free."[8] With that, the two parted without saying goodbye. "In those seconds, watching him go," Gad recalls, "I grew up."[4] Lewin and his entire family were murdered at Auschwitz.[9]

Beck joined an underground effort to supply food and hiding places to Jews escaping to neutral Switzerland.[4][6] In early 1945, a Jewish spy for the Gestapo betrayed him and some of his underground friends. He was subsequently interrogated and interned in a Jewish transit camp in Berlin.[6]

After World War II, Beck helped organize efforts to emigrate Jewish survivors to Palestine, emigrating himself in 1947. Beck returned to Berlin in 1979[6] where he was the director of the Jewish Adult Education Center in Berlin.

In 2000, Beck was featured, along with a few other gay Holocaust survivors, in the HBO documentary film Paragraph 175 in which he remembers his "great, great love" lost to the Nazis.[8][10] Also in 2000, Beck published his autobiography An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin.[4] A documentary film, Gad is planned to be filmed on location in Berlin.[11]

Beck died on June 24, 2012 in a Berlin retirement home at the age of 88.[12] He was the last known gay survivor of the Holocaust.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Broverman, Neal (2012-06-25). "Activist, Leader, and Inspiration, Gad Beck, Dies Just Short of 89". Advocate.com. Retrieved 27 June 2012.
  2. ↑ Weinthal, Benjamin (2012-06-13). "Last gay Jewish Holocaust s... JPost – Jewish World – Jewish News". Jpost.com. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
  3. ↑ Offermanns, E. (2008). Die deutschen Juden und der Spielfilm der NS-Zeit. Lang. p. 89. ISBN 9783631582237. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (6 December 1999), "Books of the Times; Surviving in Germany, the Wrong Type at the Wrong Time", The New York Times, retrieved 23 October 2009
  5. ↑ Beck, G.; Heibert, F.; Brown, A. (2000). An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 5. ISBN 9780299165048. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "Gad Beck". Holocaust Encyclopedia. Washington, D.C.: United States Holocaust Museum. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
  7. ↑ Burnett, Richard. "Remembering Gad Beck". Retrieved 8 October 2012.
  8. 1 2 Mink, Eric (9 July 2001). "A Painful Reminder of Nazi's Anti-Gay Terror". Daily News. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
  9. ↑ "Do you remember when". USHMM.
  10. ↑ Rothaus, Steve (16 November 2001). "Gay man still mourns lover killed by Nazis". Miami Herald. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
  11. ↑ Meza, Ed; Jaafar, Ali (9 February 2008). "Eytan Fox, Filme pair for war project". Variety. Retrieved 12 October 2009.
  12. ↑ Last gay Jewish Holocaust survivor dies, by Benjamin Weinthal, Jerusalem Post, 25 June 2012
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