Gerhard "Gad" Beck was an Israeli-German educator, author, activist, and last known gay survivor of the Holocaust.
Gad was born on June 30, 1923, together with his twin sister Miriam. Gad's mother Hedwig came from a Protestant family, but converted to Judaism before the marriage with Heinrich Beck in 1920. The children were raised according to Jewish traditions, supported by the Christian relatives. In 1934 Gad changed to the Jewish school in the Grosse Hamburger Strasse. In 1939 his parents were forced to move into the predominantly Jewish section of Berlin. They could no longer afford the school fees; Gad started to work as an apprentice.
In one of a remarkable string of heroic efforts, he sported an oversized Hitler Youth uniform and entered a deportation center in Berlin to free his Jewish lover, Manfred Lewin. According to Beck, Manfred said, "Gad, I can't go with you. My family needs me. If I abandon them now, I could never be free." In his highly acclaimed autobiography "An Underground Life: The Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin," Beck wrote, "In those seconds, watching him go, I grew up."
Beck died on June 24, 2012 in a Berlin retirement home at the age of 88.
Gad was born on June 30, 1923, together with his twin sister Miriam. Gad's mother Hedwig came from a Protestant family, but converted to Judaism before the marriage with Heinrich Beck in 1920. The children were raised according to Jewish traditions, supported by the Christian relatives. In 1934 Gad changed to the Jewish school in the Grosse Hamburger Strasse. In 1939 his parents were forced to move into the predominantly Jewish section of Berlin. They could no longer afford the school fees; Gad started to work as an apprentice.
In one of a remarkable string of heroic efforts, he sported an oversized Hitler Youth uniform and entered a deportation center in Berlin to free his Jewish lover, Manfred Lewin. According to Beck, Manfred said, "Gad, I can't go with you. My family needs me. If I abandon them now, I could never be free." In his highly acclaimed autobiography "An Underground Life: The Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin," Beck wrote, "In those seconds, watching him go, I grew up."
Beck died on June 24, 2012 in a Berlin retirement home at the age of 88.
Gerhard "Gad" Beck was an Israeli-German educator, author, activist, and last known gay survivor of the Holocaust.
Gad was born on June 30, 1923, together with his twin sister Miriam. Gad's mother Hedwig came from a Protestant family, but converted to Judaism before the marriage with Heinrich Beck in 1920. The children were raised according to Jewish traditions, supported by the Christian relatives. In 1934 Gad changed to the Jewish school in the Grosse Hamburger Strasse. In 1939 his parents were forced to move into the predominantly Jewish section of Berlin. They could no longer afford the school fees; Gad started to work as an apprentice.
In one of a remarkable string of heroic efforts, he sported an oversized Hitler Youth uniform and entered a deportation center in Berlin to free his Jewish lover, Manfred Lewin. According to Beck, Manfred said, "Gad, I can't go with you. My family needs me. If I abandon them now, I could never be free." In his highly acclaimed autobiography "An Underground Life: The Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin," Beck wrote, "In those seconds, watching him go, I grew up."
Beck died on June 24, 2012 in a Berlin retirement home at the age of 88.
Gad was born on June 30, 1923, together with his twin sister Miriam. Gad's mother Hedwig came from a Protestant family, but converted to Judaism before the marriage with Heinrich Beck in 1920. The children were raised according to Jewish traditions, supported by the Christian relatives. In 1934 Gad changed to the Jewish school in the Grosse Hamburger Strasse. In 1939 his parents were forced to move into the predominantly Jewish section of Berlin. They could no longer afford the school fees; Gad started to work as an apprentice.
In one of a remarkable string of heroic efforts, he sported an oversized Hitler Youth uniform and entered a deportation center in Berlin to free his Jewish lover, Manfred Lewin. According to Beck, Manfred said, "Gad, I can't go with you. My family needs me. If I abandon them now, I could never be free." In his highly acclaimed autobiography "An Underground Life: The Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin," Beck wrote, "In those seconds, watching him go, I grew up."
Beck died on June 24, 2012 in a Berlin retirement home at the age of 88.
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