The Nazi Era: Episode 5: Pierre Seel

Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive

Making Gay History

Health & Fitness, Society & Culture, History, Sexuality, Personal Journals

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1939, French teenager Pierre Seel had his watch stolen at a cruising spot in his hometown. When he reported the crime to the police, he was placed on a list of suspected homosexuals. Two years later, with the city now under Nazi occupation, he was summoned by the Gestapo. A note about language: the person featured in this episode refers to Roma people by the now offensive term gypsies. To stay true to the original French testimony, we’ve not updated that term in our voiceover translation. 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. ——— -The first interview with Pierre Seel, conducted in 1993 by Daniel Mermet, is provided courtesy of Là-bas si j'y suis. -The second interview with Pierre Seel, conducted by Laurent Aknin, is from the archive of the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, © 1996 USC Shoah Foundation. For more information about the USC Shoah Foundation, go here. ——— To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, Making Gay History family.
0:05.0	Eric here.
0:06.0	If you love the stories we share and we'd like us to continue to bring
0:11.0	LGBTQ history to life through the voices of the people who lived it, we need your help,
0:16.0	because what we do costs a lot of money.
0:19.0	Please consider donating to Making Gay History by April 10th.
0:22.6	That's how much time we've got to meet a $25,000 challenge grant from an anonymous donor.
0:28.6	It's an all-or-nothing grant.
0:30.6	That means we need to raise $25,000 ourselves to get the $25,000 grant.
0:36.6	So we're really counting on you, our listeners, to get us across the finish line.
0:41.5	Whether you donate $5, $50, $500, or more, every donation gets us that much closer.
0:48.5	Please go to making gayhistory.org slash donate.
0:51.6	That's makingayhistory.org slash donate.
0:55.0	Thanks so much.
0:57.0	I was in awe of a uniform.
0:59.0	To me, a man in uniform was happy. I was in awe of a uniform.
1:11.6	To me, a man in uniform was handsome, and even at a very young age, it stirred this desire in me that I couldn't show.
1:20.6	What with family, religion, sin, confession every week.
1:25.6	So I was enveloped within this security, if you will,
1:30.3	that from the very start prevented me from expressing my homosexuality.
1:35.3	My homosexuality. I'm Eric Marcus, and this is Making Gay History, the Nazi era.
2:03.2	Pierre Sell was born in 1923 in Els-Laureen,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Making Gay History, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Making Gay History and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.