Edited to correct a typo Rudolf and Edi were partners for nearly 60 years, not 30 as originally noted.
Multiple European news sources are reporting that Rudolf Brázda, believed to be the last gay survivor of the Nazi death camps, died in France on Wednesday night. Brázda was 98 and is reported to have died peacefully in his sleep. Although he lived much of his early life in Germany, Brázda was a Czechoslovakian citizen. He was first taken into custody in Germany 1937 and was tried and deported to Czechoslovakia. When Germany later occupied Czechoslovakia he was arrested and charged again, and in 1942 Brázda was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany proper. He remained there until Buchenwald was liberated by allied troops in 1945.
Brázda moved to the Alsace region of France after the war and lived there the remainder of his life - Alsace was noted (or, perhaps, unnoted), at that time for its French Revolution hangover - that is, the decriminalization of homosexuality. Brázda's partner of over 60 years, Edi (pictured with Brázda below), died in 2003, and last April, the French government awarded Brázda the Legion of Honor for his contributions in the recognition for the many thousands of gays who were deported to Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War.
For more on Brázda, including a video interview and a couple of photos, eat through the croissanty-type squiggle. (Just think chocolate croissant).
In the following video, Brázda shares some his experiences.
Under Germany's infamous Paragraph 175 law, being gay was a crime and tens of thousands of gay men, lesbian women and transsexuals were convicted and sent to their deaths in the concentration camps. Gay men wore "downward pointed" pink triangles, while lesbian women were forced to wear black triangles. Transsexuals, "identified" by their genitalia rather than their identity, wore the corresponding pink/black triangles.
One of the lesser known facts of LGBT history is that
"After the camps were liberated at the end of the Second World War, many of the pink triangle prisoners were often simply re-imprisoned by the Allied-established Federal Republic of Germany. An openly gay man named Heinz Dörmer, for instance, served 20 years total, first in a Nazi concentration camp and then in the jails of the new Republic. In fact, the Nazi amendments to Paragraph 175, which turned homosexuality from a minor offense into a felony, remained intact in both East and West Germany after the war for a further 24 years. While suits seeking monetary compensation have failed, in 2002 the German government issued an official apology to the gay community.[3]"
After learning in 2008 of the impending unveiling of a memorial to homosexual victims of Nazism in Berlin, Brázda decided to make himself known, and was invited to participate in gay events, including the Europride Zurich in 2009 and others in France, Switzerland and Germany. He was a guest of honor at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony in Buchenwald in 2010.
Alexander Zinn, a sociologist who wrote Brázda's biography, 'Das Glück kam immer zu mir' ("Happiness always came to me," which is sort of the motto of Rudolf Brázda), said he believes Brázda survived through unbroken humor and optimism.
Update: A great obitby the Telegraph.