Pierre Seel

Pierre Seel was born in August 1923 to two Catholic owners of a respected pastry shop in Mulhouse, a city in the French region of Alsace, near the border with Switzerland and Germany. He was the youngest of five children. Pierre realized his homosexuality at a very young age. He attributes the discovery to “moments of spiritual elevation and religious emotion” during mass. He was aware that his sexuality would create what he called “an unbridgeable gap” with his devout family, so he remained silent.  

Pierre eventually learned of a room above a café in Steinbach Square that was frequented by gay men in the region. In late 1940, during one of his visits, a watch his aunt had given him, a gift of “great sentimental value,” was stolen. He reported the theft at a local police station. Going to the police was a “last resort” to prevent his family from discovering his sexuality. The interrogating officer used the details of the crime to guess that Pierre was gay. Despite the fact that homosexuality was then legal in France, the officer berated Pierre before letting him go. Pierre didn’t know that the officer had added his name to a “pink list,” which was a list of men even suspected of being gay. 

Since June 1940, Alsace had been occupied by the Germans as part of the armistice between Germany and France. On May 2, 1941, Pierre’s mother informed him that the Gestapo had ordered him to report to their headquarters the following morning. After he complied, the Gestapo attempted to force him to confess to being gay and to divulge the names of other gay men in the region. When Pierre refused, he was beaten and raped with a broken ruler. While delivering his testimony in the 2000 documentary Paragraph 175, Pierre revealed he was still suffering the mental and physical consequences of the sexual assault sixty years later. He eventually signed a confession to stop the torture and was transported to the prison in Mulhouse. 

On May 13, 1941, at the age of 18, Pierre was deported to the Schirmeck-Vorbrück concentration camp. He was assigned a blue bar badge, which was the marker for Catholics, “asocials,” and gay prisoners in the camp. The conditions were deplorable due to scarcity of food and overcrowding in the barracks. Most prisoners were forced to perform strenuous labor in the quarry. Pierre was later declared 90% disabled from the war. 

One afternoon, early into Pierre’s internment, there was a public execution. With terror, Pierre realized the victim was his lover, Jo. The guards stripped Jo naked and placed a tin pail over his head. They then released their German shepherds on him. Classical music played in the background as he was torn apart. The pail caused his screams to reverberate. Pierre later recalled that the execution kept “ceaselessly passing and repassing through my mind” for at least fifty years.

In November 1941, Pierre was called into the office of Karl Buck, the head of the Schirmeck-Vorbrück camp. Due to “good behavior,” he was being released and awarded status as a full German citizen. Before he left, however, Pierre was asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Violation would result in renewed internment. Pierre signed the form.

On November 6, 1941, after six months in the camp, Pierre returned to his family home in Mulhouse, where his father gifted him a gold watch. Complying with the nondisclosure agreement, Pierre refused to discuss his experience, including the reason for his arrest: his sexuality. His family also never verbally broached the matter; it was a source of shame for the highly regarded Catholic Seels. Once home, Pierre could only sleep on the carpet of his bedroom, as the “ideal warmth” of his sheets made him feel “horribly oppressed,” as if he were forgetting his torture. His nightmares induced “nocturnal shrieks” that woke up his entire family.