I'm Making Gay History Family. Eric here. Thank you to all of you who helped us match the recent $25,000 challenge grant we were lucky to be offered. We couldn't have done it without you. But we are scrambling. Like many organizations, we've been affected by the new administration. We recently lost a major grant from one of our funding partners

who've had to redirect their resources in response to the new regime.

So, while I've just finished asking you for financial support,

here I am asking again.

Any amount is appreciated, so we can keep bringing LGBTQ history to life through the voices of the people who lived it.

That's all the people who lived it.

You can make a tax-deductible donation at making gayhistory.org slash donate.

That's making gay history.org slash donate.

Thanks so much.

Do you remember your first sight of German soldiers? Of course I do very well. I was, I walked down

the market square. I saw them coming up on these motorcycles and sidecars with a machine gun in front.

And so we just stood on the pavement, watching them come in.

It was a spectacle, that's all.

Obviously it was my age, I mean it was all excitement.

And since at the time they weren't beating or shooting anybody,

it was not apparent, you know, what's going to happen. I'm Eric Marcus, and this is Making Gay History, the Nazi era.

Kenneth Roman, originally Roman Katzbach, was born in 1924 in the southeastern Polish town of Gorlice.

His mother died when he was a child, and he was sent to live with his maternal grandfather, a religious Jew.

Ken's grandfather owned a successful soda factory, and Ken grew up in a large family mansion,

surrounded by dozens of uncles, aunts, and cousins.

He recalled his childhood as prosperous, cultured, and idyllic.

Ken was 15 years old when the Germans occupied

...