Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (Living Out) - Tapa dura

"An inspiring tale that should serve as a reminder that straight people don t have a monopoly on courage." Deborah Peifer, "Bay Area Reporter"" "Despite the grim backdrop, Beck s reminiscences are sensual, passionate, and strangely joyful." "Out Magazine"" "The person you meet in the pages of "An Underground Life" is far from pitiable. [Gad Beck] is instead a proud, insouciant man. . . . His involvement in the traumatic events of his time is so intense and authentic that his narrative pulls you along." Christopher Lehmann Haupt, "New York Times"" "An extraordinary tale. . . . Beck s stories of secret meetings, backstabbing betrayals and Nazi interrogations are the stuff of spy novels only here they are real, with a hauntingly young protagonist." Wayne Hoffman, "Washington Post"" "Born to an interfaith couple, Beck . . . discusses the near-simultaneous embrace of both his Jewish and his gay identities in the most unlikely of settings: a Nazi Germany that was intent on eliminating both groups." "Publishers Weekly"" "There may be other books by other Jewish Berliners, but surely none as riveting as this one." "Frontiers"" "An extraordinary tale. . . . Beck's stories of secret meetings, backstabbing betrayals and Nazi interrogations are the stuff of spy novels--only here they are real, with a hauntingly young protagonist." --Wayne Hoffman, "Washington Post" "Despite the grim backdrop, Beck's reminiscences are sensual, passionate, and strangely joyful." --"Out Magazine" "Born to an interfaith couple, Beck . . . discusses the near-simultaneous embrace of both his Jewish and his gay identities in the most unlikely of settings: a Nazi Germany that was intent on eliminating both groups." --"Publishers Weekly" "An extraordinary tale. . . . Beck's stories of secret meetings, backstabbing betrayals and Nazi interrogations are the stuff of spy novels--only here they are real, with a hauntingly young protagonist." --Wayne Hoffman, "Washington Post" "There may be other books by other Jewish Berliners, but surely none as riveting as this one." --"Frontiers" "Gad Beck, gay Holocaust survivor and Jewish resistance member, (brings) a complex and often invisible period to light. At a time when the inclusion of gay victims in Holocaust museums and histories is being widely challenged, he's a living example of that contested history."-- Out Magazine

That Gad Beck, a Jew in the Berlin of Nazi Germany, lived through the Holocaust at all is surprising. The fact that he lived it as a homosexual Jew who spent the entire war funnelling food, money and clothing to hidden Jews and helping smuggle others out of the country is amazing. It was love that gave him both the impetus and the strength to fight. The rise of National Socialism was tearing his family apart, destroying his school, thwarting his dream of emigration to Israel. Then the Nazis came for Manfred Lewin, Beck's first love, and for his family. Gad's love for Manfred gave him the courage to don a three-sizes-too-large Hitler Youth uniform, march into the transit camp where the Lewins were being held, and demand - and obtain, to his astonishment - the release of his lover. But Manfred would not leave without his family, and so went back into the camp. The Lewins did not survive. Coming of age as a gay man during the war and maintaining a series of romantic relationships while carrying on his resistance work, Beck reveals a tenacity and irrepressible spirit that is his real legacy. His determination to keep loving, living and believing in every human possibility without compromise - even in the face of the unthinkably monstrous - makes this quite a different story of the Holocaust.