An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies) [Paperback]

Gad Beck (Author), Frank Heibert (Author), Allison Brown (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog | Publication Date: August 1, 2000

That a Jew living in Nazi Berlin survived the Holocaust at all is surprising. That he was a homosexual and a teenage leader in the resistance and yet survived is amazing. But that he endured the ongoing horror with an open heart, with love and without vitriol, and has written about it so beautifully is truly miraculous. This is Gad Beck’s story.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The publication of Richard Plant's The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals (1986) opened public discussion of the treatment of gay people under the Third Reich. Since then, few books have revealed the personal stories of those who endured anti-gay German policies (I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual, 1995, is a notable exception), perhaps because many of the gay men who survived are now dead, or never felt safe coming out even after the war. All of this makes Beck's startling memoir a particularly important addition to both gay and Holocaust studies. Born in 1923 to a Jewish father and a Christian mother in a middle-class family, Beck was raised in both of his parents' religious traditions. When anti-Jewish policiesAinvolving housing relocation, forced labor and, finally, transport to the campsAbegan to be enforced, Beck helped set up resistance efforts to hide refugees and smuggle food and drugs into labor and concentration camps. In one terrifying episode, he donned a Hitler Youth uniform to rescue a lover from a deportation camp. Actively homosexual from an early age, Beck argues forthrightly and convincingly that his sexuality and love for menAwhich he movingly describes over the course of many adventuresAinfused most of his life and gave him the ability to fight for his own life and for others. His astute observations of daily life in Nazi Berlin, related in a chatty, humorous style, present a full, complex portrait of the times. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

Beck, director of Berlin's Jewish Adult Education Center, recalls his youth and his work in the anti-Nazi resistance under most unusual circumstances. Beck was half of a pair of twins (with his sister Margot) born to an interfaith couple in Weimar Germany. Beck was one of those rare fortunate gay men who recognized his sexual orientation while still very young and who had a tolerant, loving, and supportive family who never for an instant were troubled by his lifestyle. He was equally lucky that his kin on the Christian side of the family felt the same toward their new Jewish relatives. Those facts are an inextricable element in his story of growing up Jewish in Nazi Germany. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Beck and his family found themselves, like other Jews, almost immediately stigmatized by law and separated forcibly from their non-Jewish friends and neighbors. After a lengthy series of humiliations, he was forced to leave his nondenominational school for a Jewish one. Beck is one of those quietly feisty types who are spurred by rejection into action; plunged into an entirely Jewish milieu, he quickly embraced the Zionist movement. Just as quickly, he embraced many of its male adherents, and the author is charmingly frank (but not explicit) about his sex life as well as his clandestine political activities. He would survive the war living as an ``illegal'' in Berlin, becoming a central figure in the underdocumented Zionist resistance that functioned despite the Nazis. Beck is a witty, chatty figure, and Heibert and Brown have done a splendid job of capturing and conveying his voice. The result is a readable and entertaining memoir of a terrible time. Beck is apparently at work on a sequel that takes him from the end of the war up to the present; its a book to look forward to. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press; 1 edition (August 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0299165043
• ISBN-13: 978-0299165048
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #117,018 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Biographies & Memoirs > Gay

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unparalleled love of life and indomitable spirit!, October 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog) (Hardcover)

That any Jews survived Hitler's holocaust in Germany is remarkable; that they did it in the capital of the Third Reich is astonishing and that some of them were gay is almost unbelievable. Gad Beck's book starts out a bit slow, not quite dull but you hope it picks up its pace. Indeed, it does. Living in the underground, sought by the Gestapo (just being a Jew became illegal and transport to death remained a priority with the Nazis even as their regime was invaded and bombed) helping one another and living and loving as they best could is a gripping story. Told with humor and frankness, it's an excellent story. I can't wait for the next set of memoirs from Beck to be published.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Triumph of the Gay Spirit, May 18, 2000

By 

B. Dean Riner - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog) (Hardcover)

Beck gives us a glimpse of a gay man's coming of age in Nazi Berlin. It is not only erotic but holds up a light by which all aspects of love should be measured. Once again, the Gay Spirit has triumphed over bigotry, intolerance, and in this case even the holocaust.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Breathtaking, May 31, 2005

By 

J Martin Jellinek (Memphis, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog) (Hardcover)

Here is a memoire of life in Berlin during the Nazi regime from the perspective of a gay Jew. Gad Beck was an organizer and friend to many who lived illegally during that period, finding shelter and food and providing friendship and support. That he was openly gay was not important during that period - there were more important thiongs to worry about.

I found this book at the bookstore of National Haulocost Museum in Washington DC on a recent visit. It fits in perfectly with that museum, in that it fleshes out the life in hiding. If you have an interest in the struggle for human rights and length to which people will go to survive, this is an excellent read.

One fact that is underemphasized in the book is Beck's youth during this period. By the end of the war he was in his younger 20s. Yet he had accomplished so much and had the strength of one much older. Bravo!