Rudolf Brazda

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Rudolphe Brazda 2009

Rudolf Brazda (born June 26, 1913 in Brossen , Krs. Zeitz ; † August 3, 2011 in Bantzenheim , Upper Alsace ) - after being naturalized in France : Rudolphe Brazda  - was a survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp who had been imprisoned for his homosexuality . He gained public attention because he was considered the last survivor to wear the pink triangle .

Life

Brazda was born to Czech parents who immigrated from what was then Austria-Hungary . Brazda grew up in Brossen and completed an apprenticeship as a roofer after he did not get the desired apprenticeship as a window dresser due to his lack of German citizenship. When the Nazis seized power in 1933 , he was 20 years old and had just discovered his homosexuality. He went to dance events in Leipzig and met a friend in Meuselwitz. He lived with a Jehovah's Witness to sublet, where Brazda soon moved in. The strictly religious lady had nothing against this liaison and even left her bedroom to them.

Brazda was targeted by the Nazi authorities between March 1933 and September 1935 and was charged under Section 175 of the Criminal Code in the version before 1935. At the public prosecutor's office, he spoke frankly about living with his friend and also that he was not ashamed of it. The trial before the Altenburg regional court caused a sensation and a Meuselwitz newspaper headlined, according to his memory, at the time: “They lived together like man and woman.” The court is said not to have had much more than this fact in its hands and actually would have been according to the version valid at the time of the paragraph only proven "unnatural fornication" ( anal intercourse , thigh intercourse ) was punishable. Even so, Brazda was sentenced to six months in prison. After his release from prison, his mother stood by him, but he was deported to Czechoslovakia as a "criminal offender" . Until then he had never been in this country and spoke neither Czech nor Slovak.

Brazda then moved to the Sudeten German Karlsbad . Here he met a new partner who had contacts with the theater troupe “Fischli-Bühne”. Brazda accompanied the ensemble through the Sudetenland . During this time he appeared in operettas and worked as an actor and dancer, with his best number being a Josephine Baker imitation.

When Nazi Germany the Sudetenland in October 1938 annexed , Brazda stayed there. After the Jews of the theater company were arrested very soon, he was arrested a little later and held in the prison of Eger without trial . He then went on “transport” and arrived in Buchenwald concentration camp in August 1942 . There he had to wear the pink triangle , which was also marked with a "T" (for Czech). First, like most gay inmates, he had to work in the quarry, which was particularly hard work that killed many. But soon he was asked to do a lighter job in a bandage room and then transferred to a construction team as a roofer, where the working conditions were much easier. There a communist kapo took care of him and a love relationship developed that saved Brazda's life. When the Buchenwald concentration camp was to be "evacuated" in the spring of 1945 and the prisoners were sent on long marches that were deadly for many, he was able to hide in a pigsty with the help of a kapo until the 3rd US Army opened the camp on April 11th Liberated in 1945.

After the war, Brazda went with another prisoner to his homeland in Alsace . In the early 1950s he met his partner Edouard Mayer. When he was dependent on a wheelchair after an accident at work, Rudolf looked after him until his death in 2003. Brazda last lived there in a small house that he had built with his friend.

At the inauguration of the memorial for homosexuals persecuted under National Socialism on May 27, 2008, it was assumed that there would no longer be a surviving contemporary witness who had been in the concentration camp because of his homosexuality. Based on the reports, Rudolf Brazda's niece contacted the Lesbian and Gay Association in Germany (LSVD) and told them about her uncle. The now 95-year-old Brazda was then invited to Berlin by the LSVD, received by the governing mayor Klaus Wowereit in the town hall on June 27, 2008 and was present in the evening at a panel discussion on the subject of the “History of National Socialist Homosexual Persecution”. The next day, he and Wowereit and Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Thierse took part in the memorial service for the homosexual Nazi victims of the LSVD and the “ Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe ” foundation . In the afternoon he took part in a pride parade for the first time in his life and drove to France on the LSVD car. At the general meeting of the LSVD Berlin-Brandenburg on November 1st, 2008 he was made an honorary member. In 2009 he was guest of honor at the Europride in Zurich and took part again on June 27 at the memorial event in front of the memorial in Berlin.

In May 2010 a French biography written by Jean-Luc Schwab and in April 2011 a German comprehensive biography written by Alexander Zinn by Brazda was published by Campus-Verlag . On April 28, 2011 he was awarded a Knight of the Legion of Honor.

Brazda died on August 3, 2011 in a nursing home in Bantzenheim in Upper Alsace. After the cremation , his ashes were buried next to those of his partner.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Zinn, p. 314 f.
  2. ↑ a b Alexander Zinn: Rudolf Brazda - "Happiness always came to me" . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , June 26, 2008
  3. ↑ Pierre Girard: Rudolf Brazda - "Nous, les triangles roses ..." . ( Memento of December 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Têtu, January 2009
  4. ↑ a b Rudolf Brazda - with the pink triangle in the concentration camp . In: NZZ , June 5, 2009
  5. ↑ Waltraud Schwab: Christopher Street Day - Late joy at the memorial . In: taz , June 28, 2008
  6. ↑ : Matthias Oloew demonstrate remembering and celebrating - Christopher Street Day . In: Der Tagesspiegel , June 28, 2008
  7. ^ Commemoration of homosexual victims of Nazi persecution in Berlin . pride1radio.com, May 14, 2009.
  8. ↑ Brazda's biography. ( Memento of January 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Preview of Campus Verlag.
  9. ^ Rudolf Brazda, ancien Triangle rose, a reçu la Légion d'honneur . ( Memento of April 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) tetu.com, April 29, 2011
  10. ↑ Rudolf Brazda died . queer.de, August 4, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Brazda, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION homosexual prisoner in Buchenwald concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH June 26, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Brossen
DATE OF DEATH August 3, 2011
Place of death Bantzenheim , Upper Alsace