The Hidden History: Eleonore Behar's Queer Life During the Nazi Holocaust

Text by Anna Hájková*, published on the LSBTTIQ website in Baden und Württemberg (Germany) on January 27, 2017. Freely translated by the volunteers of the Gionata project.

On April 19, 1945, in the ghetto of Theresienstadt (Czech Republic), a transport of Hungarian Jews came from the forced labor field of Immendorf, in the region of the Lower Austria. Among these were the twenty -three year old Anna Lenji, originally from Budapest, and her husband Loránd.

The new prisoners were placed in the Dresden barracks. Here, Anna's health was controlled by an nurse, Eleonore Behar, a woman from Stuttgart. Behar and Lenji soon became intimate friends, but Anna sensed that Eleonore's feelings had a different meaning for her: Eleonore was a lesbian.

Behar proposed to the Lenji to move with her to Stuttgart after the war, but Loránd, being Zionist, wanted to go to Palestine. Today, Anna Lenji, who lives in Haifa, still recalls that friendship with affection: "Straight - so I called her - was fantastic. I fell in love ... in short, I loved her great. "

Eleonore Behar: a rare story in the Queer memory of the Holocaust

Why should we remember this woman among the 140,000 prisoners of Theresienstadt (Czech Republic)? Eleonore Behar is one of the very few queer people whose name we know among the ghetto inmates. She was the first woman identified as such, followed only later by other figures such as Margot Heuman.

In ghettos and concentration camps, non-conforming sexual desires were highly stigmatized, and those who engaged in homosexual activities were often erased from the collective memory or described as perverse monsters.

In the concentration camps, characterized by strict gender separation, people had masturbation or same-sex relations as their only options.

However, many of those who had homosexual relationships did not identify as such either before or after their imprisonment: their sexuality was often determined by their circumstances. These prisoners may not be called “homosexuals” in the modern sense of the term, but they are undoubtedly part of queer history.

Theresienstadt (Czech Republic), where men and women were detained together, offered a different context than single-gender camps. Some prisoners, such as the Zionist Fredy Hirsch, the Danish journalist Ralph Oppenhejm or the Berlin impersonator Harry “Hambo” Heymann, remained committed to their queer orientation even after the war.

Homophobia in the camps and in collective memory

Ulrike Janz, Cathy Gelbin and other scholars have highlighted how homophobia in the camps was a specific phenomenon and not simply an extension of interwar homophobia or Nazi ideology.

In the camps, sexual and gender behaviors were strictly policed ​​and often punished, especially for women involved in sexual exchanges. This stigmatization had profound consequences on memory: queer victims of the Holocaust did not have the opportunity to bear witness to their experiences.

Gayatri Spivak defined this exclusion as "epistemic violence": forced silence is equivalent to denying the very existence of these people, depriving them of dignity and humanity. Lesbian women, in particular, have been doubly invisibilized: as women and as queer people.

The story of Eleonore Behar

Eleonore Behar was born on May 9, 1922 in Stuttgart. His father, Abraham Behar, was a Jewish merchant of Turkish origin; his mother, Anna Oberthan, was not Jewish. Eleonore had an older sister, Victoria, who emigrated to Chile before the war.

Abraham was arrested during Kristallnacht and deported to Dachau, where he died in 1944. Eleonore, initially protected by her status as "Geltungsjüdin",** (a Jew considered as such under Nazi law), was deported to Theresienstadt (Czech Republic) in February 1945.

In the ghetto, Eleonore worked first as a mica splitter and then as a nurse. On May 9, 1945, his 23rd birthday, Theresienstadt (Czech Republic) was liberated by the Red Army. After the war, Eleonore and her mother emigrated to Chile, where they lived with Victoria. Eleonore died in Santiago in 2011, in total anonymity.

Reconstructing queer memory

Thanks to digital genealogy, I was able to trace Eleonore's photographs, documents and family members. Among these, his great-grandson Tomas, who helped me reconstruct details of his life. Although her family did not know of her homosexuality, Eleonore remained alive in their memories as a strong and generous woman.

We do not have direct testimony of Eleonore Behar, but thanks to research we can give her a place in history. As a historian of the Holocaust and queer experiences, I consider this the highest recognition possible.

* Anna Hájková is associate professor of Modern European History at the university Of Warwick (UK)

** The Geltungsjuden were people considered Jewish according to Nazi racial laws, based on the ethnic origin of their parents and grandparents, even if they did not practice Judaism. They included individuals with at least two Jewish grandparents or married to Jews. They were subject to discrimination and persecution, but some initially benefited from temporary protection, for example in cases of mixed marriage.

Original text: Das verborgene Leben der Eleonore Behar

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