The Lilac People

by Milo Todd

“The entire world had the Summer Olympics here. Everybody saluted him. His salute.”

As much as he did not want to admit it, Bertie knew that they, civilians, had all known for a long time now what Hitler had been doing. All the death and carnage and mass murder, especially of the Jews. They had known and many of them had convinced themselves that this behavior was good and rational. It could not have been done without their cooperation. They could have stopped it if enough of them had banded together early enough. Surely they could have. Bertie was innocent, yet he felt very much not. Could he have done more? Did it excuse him for hiding, being one of the heads on the chopping block? There were so many emotions swirling inside of him since ’33, he did not know how to even begin sorting them. All he knew was he felt sick. He always felt sick. After nearly an hour of walking, Oberer Kuhberg began to peak in the distance. The camp was closer than he wanted to admit.

Bertie had heard that Oberer Kuhberg was an imprisonment camp, not even a labor one. Perhaps they were being lured to their deaths. Would they do what the Nazis did, make them first dig their own graves? Sofie slipped her arm through Bertie’s and squeezed it harder than usual. He patted her hand. Would they separate the two of them before they were shot? Or would they make one watch the other? He suddenly had so much left he wanted to say to her and wondered why he had never taken the time to do so. They had talked so much over the years, and it no longer felt like it had been enough.

“This is Oberer,” he said, bungling the pronunciation as his voice carried over the breeze. “This was one of the many camps you people built to imprison, torture, and kill millions of Jews.” He paused for effect, but none of the different moods of the Deutsche changed. “Terrible things were done to them, gleeful things, and you allowed it to happen. As the first part of your reparations, you will now look at each item in turn and read the associated card explaining said item. You will go through the entire setup no less than three times.”

The first table contained several metal instruments, some glinting in the sun as if never used, some stained and dirty. The Nazis often experimented on their prisoners in an array of ways. They never used anesthesia. Many died on the tables or soon after from resulting infections. Most of the cards were labeled “Dachau” at the bottom. The Amerikans must have brought in items from the nearby labor and death camps, for Dachau certainly had plenty while places like Oberer Kuhberg had not. Bertie thought of Karl.

The third table was covered in framed photographs of bodies. Naked bodies, emaciated bodies, skeletal bodies, piles of bodies, dead and dead and dead. The level of mass murder by the Nazis accounts for at least 11 million people. Since they tried to destroy most of the records before they were caught, we will never know how many died by their hands. Due to so many and a lack of identification, they had to be buried in mass sites.

As they moved in grim silence, he heard laughter and casual chatting from at least half of his countrymen. He could not look up. He had done business with these people, had been kind to them during the War. These were the Deutsche the Amerikans were making them all pay for. Plenty of them had not been as scared as he or Sofie, not until the War was surely to be lost, and it was sometimes impossible to tell until it was too late. “These are lies,” he heard one of them say in Deutsch. “We made homes and jobs for them. He had his reasons to do this.” “If they didn’t want to be punished, then they should’ve obeyed the law,” someone else agreed. “The only ones he got rid of were the ones hurting Germany.” Bertie felt a deep sense of shame for his country. This was not the people he felt they were. He could not understand how one could have their head twisted so terribly. Or perhaps they had always been this bad. He wondered how much of what Hitler said had changed minds, and how much of it was simply what people wanted to hear. Had not many countries fallen to such a fate in some way throughout time? The only difference was Hitler had gotten further than most. Bertie could reject them all he wanted. He could say they were not his people. But they were still his people. And what others did could not excuse what his people had done. He had tried to distract himself from the truth, that these people represented his country just as much as he did. But in front of the tables, the tr...

The Nazis sometimes skinned the dead and made items from the leather. Many of these items became home décor and trophies for Nazi officers and their wives. Bertie swallowed. The first item was a lamp clasped in beige, wrinkled fabric with numerous large, black stitches in seemingly random lines. This lamp was found in the home of an officer’s wife. The shade required a larger quantity of skin than a singular piece could provide. Notice the stitching of multiple pieces sewn together. It is unknown if the pieces came from different people.

They dragged over a man. Also naked. Said he could live. He just had to fuck me. The man didn’t want to. They laughed at him. They called him a warm brother. It made more sense. But still not enough. I could’ve run. I could’ve tried. They had guns. But no hands were on me. I was afraid to run. I was afraid of yelling for help. I was afraid of being seen. Being seen was worse. One more time and it’d be over. It’d be fine. I could go back home. He did what they told him. He turned away as he did it. He never looked at me. He finished. They pulled him away. They checked me. They laughed. They shot him in the head. They left him on the street. I knew soon it’d be over. Soon it’d be my turn. But they brought more. Same promises. Same gunshots. Sometimes. Not always. I don’t know why.

The pinks were separated from the rest. They thought inverts were contagious. They put me with the pinks. Like a joke. Conversion for all.

We lined up one day. SS officers were picking us out. One pointed at me. And an argument started. A coin was flipped. One of them grinned. Took me to his quarters. Had his way with me. He did not laugh. He did not say cruel things. He said sweet things. But they were still cruel. He gave me a piece of candy. He smiled. He said I should say thank you. I did. He sent me back to my building. Otto said they picked out pipels. It happened to the pinks too. Many officers were inverts. Small and pretty was most sought. I was now a pipel. He said to play it. He said it would save me. He said I was lucky. That I got an SS man when most got only kapos. That I was like a pink now. I knew only boys were pipels. I was a boy now. They finally saw me only so they could make more reason to hurt me.

Boys like me. We were viable incubators. We could get pregnant. Rehabilitation was always believed for us. A condition that was curable. Pregnancy would help. They tried to impregnate us. To fix us. Almost none took. Some of us had been sterilized before arriving. The rest of us were infertile from camp life. The few that got pregnant. Black triangles that weren’t like us. Unintentional pregnancies. They were either shot or sent for abortion. It made no sense.

But now they had come. Now we were free. They opened the gates. They told us we could walk out. Walk to where? Nobody knew. But we were free. This was supposed to be a good thing. And yet nothing waited for us out there. They had helped us. But didn’t give us help. What more could they have done. I don’t know. They seemed to want thanks. Some of us did. I was stuck in my head. I couldn’t get out of my head. But the gates were open. It wouldn’t be much longer now. But then I saw it happen. I saw them take the pink triangles. Some of the black triangles. They released the others. I heard them check files. To start our sentences in jail. For being inverts and transvestites. They even let the thieves and murderers go. They had served their sentences already. Being in the camps. They were punished enough. I wouldn’t do it. Not anymore. Not again. I ran. I wanted them to shoot me. They didn’t. They let me run.

“I don’t tell you all this to shock you. I tell you because I need someone to know.”

“I’m worried I’ll be mad forever.” “Then be mad forever,” Bertie said. He sounded unsure. “But I have so much anger.” “Because much has been done upon you,” Sofie said. “The Nazis have made us scared of anger, made us believe that anger is bad. Anger is not bad. Anger is how we tell ourselves that we’ve been wronged, that we’ve been mistreated, and that it’s not okay. Anger is a beautiful emotion. We just need to express it properly.” She pressed her finger down on a random key. “In music, we call it passion.”

“‘Das Lila Lied,’” Bertie said. “The anthem of our community. Do you recognize it?” He shook his head. “We have a song?” Sofie could not help smiling at the memory. “Oh yes. We loved it. We sang it at every party, every burlesque, wherever we could get away with it. Kurt Schwabach and Mischa Spoliansky created it in honor of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld.

The bleigießen of Gert had been a cross. It should not have been a cross, not ever. Crosses meant death.

It was partially why Bertie had never left, why none of them had left. They were all waiting for Gert to arrive; they were all waiting for things to get better. “Let’s wait and see” was the mantra. “Let’s wait and see.” And then Gert kept not arriving, and then transvestite passports were shut down, and then other passports were shut down, and then the Deutschland borders were closed, and it was illegal to leave.

He finally let the other thought in, the thought he had been resisting since Karl told them his story. It was some of the medical experiments he mentioned, the pellets of testosterone they had forced on invert men. They were Titus Pearls, those little capsules implanted under the skin. They were patented by Doktor Hirschfeld, they were his. Bertie was ashamed to say it. The Institut also had a department that studied eugenics. The Nazis had been inspired by Doktor Hirschfeld’s own work. They must have visited the Institut, gone on the tours. Bertie may have led those tours himself, fed them information, put ideas in their heads. The Institut was complicit in the slaughter of his own people.

“Stretch your tongue out, far as you can, good.” Bertie did it himself, too, counting to ten with his fingers.

“Okay, good. Now massage your jaw muscles with the heels of your hands. Downward motion. Good.” He did the same alongside Karl. “Remember that we need to stretch out and relax everything from the ribs up. Try to remember to breathe and keep your heart rate down. The more tension you have, the higher the voice naturally becomes.”

“Now I want you to repeat after me and remember to breathe in from your belly. Bring your voice up from there. Remember it’s not so much pitch as it is resonance. You want it to vibrate from your chest, not your head. And end each sentence a note lower than you used for the syllable before it.

He recognized how heartily Karl shook the hand of Ward, how straight he stood, how well he had tied his tie. His voice resonated from his chest, and he ended nearly every sentence with a note lower than the syllable before it.

We’ve received word that as one of the first orders of business, transvestite cards will no longer be granted. All persons currently in possession of a transvestite card will have it revoked. We repeat, transvestite cards will no longer be granted nor honored. We’re also receiving reports that most new name changes for transvestites are being rejected. Take heart, fellow souls. Let us hope that this dark day is short.

We’ve received word that many transvestite name changes long since granted are now being rescinded. Many transvestites are being ordered to no longer live as themselves, and some have had their homes searched to ensure they no longer own any articles of clothing deemed inappropriate. Hold on, friends. Let’s hope this spreads no further.

We’ve received word that Hermann Göring, cabinet minister to Hitler, has ordered the full and permanent closure of all remaining clubs, bars, and social spots related to inverts and transvestites. Reports are already coming in that inverts and transvestites are now being routinely arrested and imprisoned. Hold steady, fellow lilac people. We will see this heartache through. We’ve received word that a prison has opened in Dachau. They’re calling it a work camp, specifically built to house transvestites, inverts, and political opponents of Adolf Hitler. Rumor has it there are plans to build many more as time goes on. Be careful out there, friends. Do not draw attention to yourselves. Do not give them reason to harm you. We’ve received word that the Eldorado has been taken. They’ve torn down the signs and banners, hung up their swastikas, and are now using it as a local headquarters for the brownshirts. The only visible remnant of the Eldorado is the banner above the front door: Hier ist’s richtig. We believe this was intentional, and the photograph circulating in their current propaganda appears to be staged to make a statement. They are aware of the symbolism at play. We understand how disheartening all this news has been. Please take care of yourselves. Please look after one another. Please keep your heads down.

In addition to being chancellor, Hitler has the aforementioned legal right to imprison opponents without trial and to censor the press, and he now has the power to personally enact laws without need of the legislature. Sources believe he’s in the process of creating a one-party state. All of this has been done through legal, constitutional, and democratic means. This is a particularly distressing day. Stay vigilant, friends. Blend in.

the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring. Starting July 14, all those with genetic blindness or deafness, manic depression, schizophrenia, epilepsy, congenital feeblemindedness, Huntington’s chorea, alcoholism, or other related conditions will be forcibly sterilized.

We’ve received word that all surviving lilac journals and newspapers have been forced to fold. There is nothing of us left. We’ve received word that the police have been ordered to supply the Gestapo with lists of all men engaged in homosexual activities. We are not sure what this means for transvestites.

Adolf Hitler has declared Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld “the most dangerous Jew in Germany.”

He kept his head down as he walked, not daring eye contact. He hunched his shoulders whenever he passed someone who was doing quite the opposite. Beware the ones that were happy, he knew. Beware the ones that felt invigorated. They were lethal.

“He’s doing their bidding for now,” Sofie had said, one of the last comments she gave on the matter. “And they’re happy for now. But hear me, they’ll regret it soon enough. People who start attacking at the bottom never know when to stop climbing. They eventually eat their own. It’s not a sustainable practice.”

It was a difficult call to make yet, whether anyone who could leave the country should. There was so much disbelief, so much incomprehension of what was happening. Surely things could not happen this way. Surely things could not happen this quickly. Perhaps they would be safe. After all, the inverts argued, Ernst Röhm was one of them and he was Hitler’s right-hand military man. He would never forsake his own kind. Hitler would never go after inverts if one of his top team was one. But what protection did transvestites have, Bertie wondered.

“A country is only as strong as its most vulnerable people. And you, son, if you may forgive me for saying, are on the lowest rung of the ladder. You’re a canary, Bertie. Transvestites are the canaries of the world. You know from our own library that bad people always go after transvestites first, no matter the country or culture. They are the first ones removed when an environment turns poisonous. What makes it more worrisome is you represent everything. You represent housing and job security and access to healthcare. You represent workers’ rights and voting rights and full stomachs and freedom. And perhaps most importantly of all, you represent the right to body and personhood. You represent a country not owning you, not using you however benefits a select few at the top. You represent a country of a people, not a country of the dominant. If transvestites are under attack, then the whole of the country is on the brink of destruction. If transvestites are cared for, the rest of us are cared for. You touch everything a strong society has to offer. We could work, we could eat, we could be healthy, we could live in safe homes, we could decline to fight in unnecessary wars. Our country would be honest. We would no longer be tricked. Our country would take care of us and we, in turn, would take care of our country. So as long as transvestites are okay, we know society is, too. That’s why I’m here for you. Because I love my country.”

I care about you because I care about everyone. Nothing I’m doing here is noble or generous. It’s simply common sense. It’s simply humanity. No person should encourage the suffering of another. There’s already too much given by nature. And when a person encourages the suffering of another, you can bet they won’t stop there. They want to see it because they hope it will fill the emptiness inside themselves, but it won’t, because it never does, and so they’ll look for the next one, and the next one, and the one after that.”

“Any invert who thinks Hitler will stop at transvestites is a fool. And any person who thinks Hitler will stop at inverts thereafter is just as foolish. They try to convince people that you’re the only group they’re after when really you’re just the first one. They look for the first domino to knock down, the one people will give the least resistance to, the one they care about the least. And once they’ve done it, it might be too late for everyone else.”

He understood what Doktor Hirschfeld was trying to do, for the only true way to gain rights was to show you existed. To create outreach and educate the public, to build awareness. But by showing they existed, not yet gaining the rights to back them up, they had made themselves targets. Visibility without protection only encouraged violence.

Everything had burned, ever since that night at the Institut. First the twenty thousand books and then the thirty-five thousand photographic slides and then the countless people and then the proof that any of it had ever happened at all. It was a threefold devastation. Generations of history gone, the people still living killed, the Nazis eventually destroying all the evidence of their crimes that they could, now backed by the Allies who were throwing their few survivors into prison, upholding the Nazi versions of these laws, the final stragglers too afraid of further retribution to speak up. They would all die out not speaking up. Even after all they had survived.

“It may look like I’m collected. It may even look like I don’t care. But inside, the crying, it’s all in my heart. It’s in my heart every day. I cry for myself, I cry for the others. I cry for the ones I’ve never even met. Just because they are faceless doesn’t make them less important to me. I know they were out there somewhere. And they suffered.” “I can’t imagine how you’re able to go on.” “Because I have to.” He paused, looking out to the forest. “Some moments, I want to end things. But that would be an insult to those who did not make it. But to move forward, to move past this, to be happy, is that not also insulting?” He glanced over at Bertie before looking away. “So here I am. Suspended in motion as time rushes around me.”

“You know,” he said. “I read plenty in those archives before they burned it all. I saw what history has seen, time and again. They may get most of us, but they’ll never get all of us. They never do.” Karl seemed to consider this. “If that’s the comfort we have left,” he finally said, “then I’ll take it.”

“There are laws.” “But you having now the power. You choosing now what is laws and what is not laws.” Ward seemed unmoved by this attempt at humanity. “It’s for the best of a people.” Bertie did not understand and he did not care to. “How much time?” he asked. “Six months or five years?” “Five years,” Ward replied. He gave no hesitation. They were choosing the harsher Nazi law instead of what had been on the books for generations before them. They were choosing the Nazi law when they had chosen to not honor all those against other peoples. Bertie shook his head.

And as the back door continued to bang against the wall, Karl frantically scooped every handful he could salvage of Oma and Opa. “Come on!” Sofie yelled, picking up two of the suitcases. “We need to run!” “I can’t leave them like this!” “You didn’t even know them!” “That shouldn’t matter!” With so much ash still scattered on the floor, with so much still hanging in the air, Karl finally admitted defeat and replaced the lid. He tucked the urn against his chest, dirtying his shirt in powdery gray smears. He picked up the third suitcase, and they ran out the front door to the old auto. They did not speak of Bertie. They did not discuss their need to bring all three suitcases to the ferry. The urn was much lighter than it used to be, and it would never be known how much of whom had been left behind, how much of whom had managed to go with them, how much had entered the lungs of bad people and how much would blow out the open doors into the freedom of the night air. It probably did not matter. For after so many years of waiting, of sadness and angst and helplessness, Oma and Opa felt they had finally done something in the name of their grandson.

Their voices were far behind him, but between his fear and the way their shouts carried, he was certain they were only a step behind. Any moment, they would grab him. Any moment, it would all be over. But let not the world say that he did not resist until the very end.

She continued to pet Katze, thoughtful a moment. “It was your eyes tonight that convinced me.” “My eyes?” “You had fear in them. Not the fear of a man who must finally pay for his actions. But the fear of a man who is innocent. I know that difference well.” Bertie said nothing.

“I’m having some difficulty.” Karl’s breathing was labored. He was curled into himself, hugging his knees to his chest. “What’s happening?” Bertie asked. “The problem with surviving things,” Karl said, swallowing heavily, “is that everything reminds you of it.”

Bertie heard his footsteps slowly retreat across the deck and down the boarding plank. If this was truly the last time he would see him, Bertie felt it somehow fitting that he had not laid eyes on him at all. Let him be nothing more than a faceless entity intent on haunting him.

“Do you think history we’ll remember us as bad people? For doing what we’re doing?” Karl had long since evened his breathing. He kept his eyes to the keys. “I think we’ll be lucky if history remembers us at all.” “We could be reporting them, but we’re not. This whole time, the entire War, we never stood up and declared our resistance.” “Because that would’ve been suicide,” Sofie replied, though she herself looked uncomfortable with the conversation. They had talked lightly about it a few times in the past but always stopped before they could declare themselves bad people. “All we did was tuck ourselves away and fake our way through so we could survive. It feels selfish.” “Survival is inherently selfish,” Karl said. This did not comfort Bertie. “Inaction is a poison.” Karl continued to stare intently at the keys. His fingers continued to drum, but they were slower now. “Yes. And we’ll always tell ourselves whatever we need to justify our actions.” “And we’re allowing it to go to America now, the Nazis with us. We’re allowing it to happen.” “You talk as if America is a place of purity. Do you not believe there are Americans who agree with Hitler? They have just been quieter about it.” They all went silent after that. Bertie was not sure if this logic had bested his guilt or if he was just exhausted.

Bertie locked eyes with him. He felt he could not look away. He took in a breath. “I don’t know how you do it, Karl. I don’t know how you have survived, how you keep yourself so calm so much of the time.” “It’s not a calmness. Whatever factory was inside me to run my grief, I had to shut it down. I will never turn it back on again.” “Why?” “Because what has happened is beyond human comprehension. It’s beyond sense. All it is, is poison. And if I want to stay human, I have to protect myself.” “That’s not a happy moral.” “I’ve realized that the mind can do only two things: make us happy and keep us safe. But it can’t do both at the same time.”

Once the ship weighed anchor, a great sadness fell upon him. There was no going back. Deutschland was behind him forever. He had loved his country. He felt that maybe he still did. But what he loved was what it used to be, what had been lost. The things it could have been. He had wanted to be patriotic, was proud to be patriotic, and they had told him no. And then they had ripped apart what good was left so it could be enjoyed by no one. Bertie did not understand this, would never understand this. Pride in a country was for what it could do for its people, not what it could take away.

They had, at least, managed to get out of the North Sea without incident. They were never attacked by Ally submarines, a tragedy visited upon many ships with passengers desperate to get out earlier that year, including the Wilhelm Gustloff in the nearby Baltic. The radio had said the ship lost more souls than the Titanic and the Lusitania combined, many of them children.