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A review by munjiru
I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi Terror by Pierre Seel
4.0
This is the author’s memoir of his time in a Nazi interment camp for the crime of being homosexual and his life in the years after as a forced German citizen fighting in their army (he’s French). It was a lot. You think you’ve seen pretty much everything there is to see about how horrible people can be to each other and then you read something else and discover new depths.
Pierre was just seventeen when he was taken away from his family, ruthlessly beaten and tortured while being held at the police station and later imprisoned at the camp. In the six months he was held there, he was beaten, tortured, starved, experimented on and saw the boy he loved mauled to death by dogs. Later on, he was made to fight in the German front lines during the war and didn’t get out until he was twenty two.
Some excerpts:
>>> I have very clear memories of white walls, white shirts, and the laughter of the orderlies. The orderlies enjoyed hurling their syringes at us like darts at a fair. During one injection session, my unfortunate neighbor blacked out and collapsed: the needle had struck his ⁷heart. We never saw him again.
>>> Then the loudspeakers broadcast some noisy classical music while the SS stripped him naked and shoved a tin pail over his head. Next they sicced their ferocious German shepherds on him: the guard dogs first bit into his groin and thighs, then devoured him right in front of us. His shrieks of pain were distorted and amplified by the pail in which his head was trapped. My rigid body reeled, my eyes gaped at so much horror, tears poured down my cheeks, I fervently prayed that he would black out quickly.
>>> I was not killed.[...]I was eighteen, but I had no age. My love had died; the Nazis had left me in tatters.
Then having gone through all this and getting back home, his family was quite distant with him and he eventually convinced himself to marry to try and find some kind of peace. When that fell apart, he decided to speak up and demand reparations from the government alongside other survivors but he was frustrated every step of the way and it never really happened for him.
I can’t even begin to describe what this book made me feel and the matter of fact way he describes his experiences makes it seem that much more horrific. It’s a very short book but it weighs on you very heavily by the end of it.
Pierre was just seventeen when he was taken away from his family, ruthlessly beaten and tortured while being held at the police station and later imprisoned at the camp. In the six months he was held there, he was beaten, tortured, starved, experimented on and saw the boy he loved mauled to death by dogs. Later on, he was made to fight in the German front lines during the war and didn’t get out until he was twenty two.
Some excerpts:
>>> I have very clear memories of white walls, white shirts, and the laughter of the orderlies. The orderlies enjoyed hurling their syringes at us like darts at a fair. During one injection session, my unfortunate neighbor blacked out and collapsed: the needle had struck his ⁷heart. We never saw him again.
>>> Then the loudspeakers broadcast some noisy classical music while the SS stripped him naked and shoved a tin pail over his head. Next they sicced their ferocious German shepherds on him: the guard dogs first bit into his groin and thighs, then devoured him right in front of us. His shrieks of pain were distorted and amplified by the pail in which his head was trapped. My rigid body reeled, my eyes gaped at so much horror, tears poured down my cheeks, I fervently prayed that he would black out quickly.
>>> I was not killed.[...]I was eighteen, but I had no age. My love had died; the Nazis had left me in tatters.
Then having gone through all this and getting back home, his family was quite distant with him and he eventually convinced himself to marry to try and find some kind of peace. When that fell apart, he decided to speak up and demand reparations from the government alongside other survivors but he was frustrated every step of the way and it never really happened for him.
I can’t even begin to describe what this book made me feel and the matter of fact way he describes his experiences makes it seem that much more horrific. It’s a very short book but it weighs on you very heavily by the end of it.