Karl Gorath (12 December 1912,

Bad Zwischenahn Bad Zwischenahn (; ) is a town and a municipality in the low-lying Ammerland district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is on Zwischenahner Meer, approximately 15 km northwest of Oldenburg and about 70 km south of the North Sea coast. His ...

− 18 March 2003,

Bremerhaven Bremerhaven (; ) is a city on the east bank of the Weser estuary in northern Germany. It forms an exclave of the Bremen (state), city-state of Bremen. The Geeste (river), River Geeste flows through the city before emptying into the Weser. Brem ...

) was a

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...

man who was arrested in 1938 and imprisoned for

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexu ...

Neuengamme Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, th ...

and

Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...

. He was freed in 1945. Gorath was training for a nursing career when, at 26, he was denounced as a homosexual by his "jealous lover" and arrested under

Paragraph 175 Paragraph 175, known formally a§175 StGBand also referred to as Section 175 in English language, English, was a provision of the Strafgesetzbuch, German Criminal Code from 15 May 1871 to 10 March 1994. It Criminalization of homosexuality, mad ...

of the criminal code, which defined homosexuality as an "unnatural act". Gorath was imprisoned at Neuengamme near

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, Germany, and was forced to wear a

pink triangle A pink triangle is a symbol for the LGBT community. Initially intended as a badge of shame, it was later reappropriated as a positive symbol of self-identity. It originated in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s as one of the Nazi concentratio ...

, identifying him as gay and a

transvestite Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes traditionally or stereotypically associated with a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and express onesel ...

. Because of his medical training, Gorath was transferred to work at a prisoner hospital in a sub-camp of Neuengamme. When he refused to decrease the bread ration for patients who were

Poles Pole or poles may refer to: People *Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland * Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name * Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist ...

, Gorath was transferred to Auschwitz. There he wore the red triangle of a

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although ...

, which he believed spared him the brutality inflicted on inmates identified as gay. In January 1945, Gorath was freed when the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

liberated Auschwitz. After the war, in 1947 he was sentenced again: “By the same Judge. Rabien his name was. He received me in the courtroom with the words: ‘You are here again!’” Gorath is one of six gay men who are the subject of a

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

on gay men in

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

concentration camps. The film, by producers Jeffrey Friedman and

Rob Epstein Robert P. Epstein (born April 6, 1955), is an American director, producer, writer, and editor. He is known for directing numerous documentaries, several of them focusing on the LGBTQ community and has won two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, an ...

and narrated by

Rupert Everett Rupert James Hector Everett (; born 29 May 1959) is an English actor. He first came to public attention in 1981 when he was cast in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film '' Another Country'' (1984) as a gay pupil at an English public scho ...

, is called ''

''.

References

External links

Hidden from History: The Gay Holocaust
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gorath, Karl 1912 births 2003 deaths Auschwitz concentration camp survivors German prisoners and detainees LGBT survivors of Nazi concentration camps German gay men Neuengamme concentration camp survivors People convicted under Germany's Paragraph 175 People from Ammerland 20th-century German LGBTQ people

See also

References

External links