Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive

In our second introductory episode, we focus on life in the Nazi concentration camps and offer a glimpse into the experiences of LGBTQ people in occupied countries during WWII as we continue to set the context for the eight profile episodes to follow.

Visit our episode webpage for additional resources, archival photos, and a transcript of the episode.

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-The following interview segments are from the archive of the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education: 

For more information about the USC Shoah Foundation, go here.

-The Leo Classen excerpt is taken from “Die Dornenkrone: Ein Tatsachenbericht aus der Strafkompanie Sachsenhausen” (“The Crown of Thorns: A Factual Report from the Sachsenhausen Penal Company”), Humanitas: Monatsschrift für Menschlichkeit und Kultur 2, no. 2 (1954): 59-60.

-Audio of the 1990 interview with Josef Kohout used by permission of QWIEN, the Center for Queer History in Vienna. 

-The Josef Kohout book excerpts are from Heinz Heger’s The Men with the Pink Triangle, Haymarket Books, Chicago, 2023. Used by permission of the publisher. Original German edition Die Männer mit dem rosa Winkel © 1972/2014 MERLIN VERLAG Andreas Meyer Verlags GmbH. & Co. KG, Gifkendorf, Germany. English translation by David Fernbach © 2004 MERLIN VERLAG Andreas Meyer Verlags GmbH. & Co. KG, Gifkendorf, Germany.

-The following interview segments are courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.:

For more information about the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, go here.

-Arthur Haulot audio courtesy of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

-The Ovida Delect excerpt is from her memoir La vocation d'être femme (The Vocation to Be a Woman). Copyright © Éditions L'Harmattan, 1996. Used by permission of Éditions L'Harmattan.

-The Ruth Maier excerpts are from Ruth Maier’s Diary by Ruth Maier. Copyright © Gyldendal Norsk Forlag AS, 2007. English translation copyright © Jamie Bulloch, 2009. Used by permission of The Random House Group Limited.

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In this first of two introductory episodes, hear how the walls closed in on LGBTQ people after Hitler came to power through the recorded and written memories of multiple queer people who witnessed or fell victim to the Nazis’ persecution.

Visit our episode webpage for additional resources, archival photos, and a transcript of the episode.

For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our Patreon community.

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-The interview segment of Bertram Schaffner is from the archive of the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, © 1998 USC Shoah Foundation. For more information about the USC Shoah Foundation, go here.

-The Eric Langer letter is an excerpt from The Pink Triangle by Richard Plant. Copyright © 1986 by Richard Plant. Used by permission of Henry Holt and Company. All Rights Reserved.

-Michael Rittermann audio from the 1989 documentary Desire: Sexuality in Germany 1910-1945 (dir. Stuart Marshall) used by permission of Maya Vision International.

-RG-50.030.0445, oral history interview with Rolf Hirschberg, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. For more information about the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, go here.

-The unpublished Liddy Bacroff writings reside at the Staatsarchiv der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg, 242-4 Nr. 339.

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Host Eric Marcus welcomes listeners to MGH’s “Nazi Era” series by going back in time to 1980 and a darkened Broadway theater where his interest in LGBTQ Holocaust history was kindled. Join Eric as we embark on a 12-episode journey and honor Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Visit our episode webpage for a transcript of the episode.

For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our Patreon community.

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-1993 interview with Pierre Seel courtesy of Là-Bas Si J'y Suis. 

-RG-50.030.0019, oral history interview with Frieda Belinfante, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. For more information about the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, go here.  

-Lucy Salani footage courtesy of Matteo Botrugno and Daniele Coluccini, directors of C'è un soffio di vita soltanto (2021), produced by Blue Mirror and Kimerafilm, distributed by True Colours. 

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Frank Kameny lived by three rules: have absolute confidence in your beliefs; fight for what’s right; never, ever give up. Let them be a battle cry in these dark times.

Visit the webpage for the original 2016 episode featuring Frank Kameny for background information, archival photos, and other resources, as well as the episode’s transcript. 

For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our ⁠⁠Patreon community⁠⁠.

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In 1983 Evan Wolfson wrote a law school thesis that asserted that gay people had a constitutional right to marry. Thirty-two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed as much. In this guest episode from But We Loved, get to know the man behind one of the biggest victories in the history of the LGBTQ civil rights movement. 

Learn more about Evan Wolfson and the Freedom to Marry campaign here.

Find more episodes of But We Loved, a production of iHeartPodcasts and the Outspoken Podcast Network, here or on your favorite podcast platform.

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Like so many other acts of LGBTQ resistance, the 1969 Stonewall riots could have become a footnote in history. But the protests and organizing that followed launched a new phase in the fight for LGBTQ rights. Hear how anger found its voice and how joy propelled the first Pride marches.

First aired June 20, 2019. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources, as well as the episode’s transcript. 

To hear more from Craig Rodwell, go here. And listen to Barbara Gittings and Kay Lahusen here as they discuss how homophile activists fared in the heady days of post-Stonewall organizing.

For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our Patreon community.

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The Stonewall uprising began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969. Revisit that moment, and the hours and days that followed, with voices from the Making Gay History archive. Relive in vivid detail the dawning of a new chapter in the fight for LGBTQ rights. 

First aired June 13, 2019. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources, as well the episode’s transcript. 

To hear more of Marsha P. Johnson and Randy Wicker’s conversation about Stonewall, go here. And listen to Morty Manford’s account of the riots here.

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Conflict has context. In this first episode of Making Gay History’s Stonewall season, we hear stories from the pre-Stonewall struggle for LGBTQ rights. We travel back in time to the turbulent 1960s and take you to the tinderbox that was Greenwich Village on the eve of an uprising.

First aired June 6, 2019. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources, as well as the episode’s transcript. 

For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our Patreon community.

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Can historical and emotional truth coexist? For the 55th anniversary of the uprising, Eric and fellow LGBTQ history expert Ken Lustbader talk to Stonewall National Monument visitors and let a few myths slip by to uncover Stonewall’s moving resonance as a symbol of LGBTQ liberation and joy.

This episode is a co-production of Making Gay History and the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, in partnership with the National Park Service.

Visit our episode webpage for a transcript of the episode.

For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our Patreon community.

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As a bookish lesbian growing up in working-class England, June Thomas developed an early love of bookstores. After moving to the U.S. in the 1980s, she found community in the feminist bookstores of the era, as she recounts in A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women's Culture.

Visit our episode webpage for a transcript of the episode. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our Patreon community.

Episode Art: The Old Wives’ Tales Collective, San Francisco, 1982: Carol Seajay, Pell, Sherry Thomas, Tiana Arruda, and Kit Quan. © 1982 JEB (Joan E. Biren). 

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