Aleksandra Kumala

The article critically analyzes various types of narratives of the former KL Auschwitz prisoner – August Kowalczyk – related to the issue of (homo)sexual relations in Nazi concentration camps. The juxtaposition of excerpts from his archival account, a published memoir and two oral accounts reveals a consolidating pattern, which is being used by Kowalczyk to cut himself off from the condition of being a potential victim of sexual abuse, condition of pipel and taboo – especially in the male-centered concentration camp discourse – themes: sexual barter and sexual violence. The theoretical framework, constructed with the use of Holocaust studies and gender studies’ findings, shows the possibility of finding expressions of gendered experiences in the Polish concentration camp and combatant discourse.

The article offers in-depth, critical analysis of the books The Men With The Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps by Heinz Heger and Damned Strong Love: The True Story of Willi G. and Stefan K. by Lutz van Dijk, touching upon the topic of Nazi persecutions of homosexuals. Both texts are being presented as matrix testimonies, which not only widened the Second World War discourse by introducing the homosexual victim, but also initiated homosexual variant of what Przemysław Czapliński’s called the “reverse catastrophe”. Although concentrating precisely on male war-time experience, the texts significantly exceed the dominant, male-centered narrative pattern. By discussing the issues such as ambiguous authorship, differences between narrative strategies, brutalization of the language and the authors’ attitudes towards body, sexuality or violence, the article demonstrates—thus far seldomly considered—“catastrophic potential” of the publications. Attention is also being drawn to the fact that by virtue of their existence, homosexual war-time experience no longer has to be considered—to use Sławomir Buryła’s term—“non-verbalizable”