Review: An Underground Life
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsBeck, director of Berlin's Jewish Adult Education Center, recalls his youth and his work in the anti-Nazi resistance under most unusual circumstances. Beck was half of a pair of twins (with his sister Margot) born to an interfaith couple in Weimar Germany. Beck was one of those rare fortunate gay men who recognized his sexual orientation while still very young and who had a tolerant, loving, and supportive family who never for an instant were troubled by his lifestyle. He was equally lucky that his kin on the Christian side of the family felt the same toward their new Jewish relatives. Those facts are an inextricable element in his story of growing up Jewish in Nazi Germany. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Beck and his family found themselves, like other Jews, almost immediately stigmatized by law and separated forcibly from their non-Jewish friends and neighbors. After a lengthy series of humiliations, he was forced to leave his nondenominational school for a Jewish one. Beck is one of those quietly feisty types who are spurred by rejection into action; plunged into an entirely Jewish milieu, he quickly embraced the Zionist movement. Just as quickly, he embraced many of its male adherents, and the author is charmingly frank (but not explicit) about his sex life as well as his clandestine political activities. He would survive the war living as an "illegal" in Berlin, becoming a central figure in the underdocumented Zionist resistance that functioned despite the Nazis. Beck is a witty, chatty figure, and Heibert and Brown have done a splendid job of capturing and conveying his voice. The result is a readable and entertaining memoir of a terrible time. Beck is apparently at work on a sequel that takes him from the end of the war up to the present; it's a book to look forward to.
Review: An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin
User Review - Christoph Fischer - GoodreadsA short but poignant insight in life for gays in Berlin under the Nazis. I wish it was more in depth at places Read full review
Review: An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin
User Review - Michael Kerr - GoodreadsIt's hard to imagine facing arrest and incarceration in a concentration camp for being gay - but this is the world Gad Beck describes. It's even harder to imagine the treatment the author received after the war ended. Not cheerful, but worth reading. Read full review
Review: An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin
User Review - Ronald Beasley - GoodreadsI didn't expect there to be so much sex in a story about a Jewish boy living in Nazi Germany. I suppose something had to be done to lighten the mood, but Gad Beck seems to have seduced or been seduced ... Read full review
Review: An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin
User Review - Gina - GoodreadsAn extraordinary story of survival, endurance and triumph. Read full review
Review: An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin
User Review - GoodreadsSeveral years ago I saw a documentary entitled "Paragraph 175," which looked at the persecution of gays and lesbians in Nazi Germany. A few days ago, I got a sudden inexplicable urge to watch the ...
Review: An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin
User Review - Dswatling - GoodreadsExtraordinary story, extraordinary life. "God doesn't punish for a life of love." - Gad Beck, (30 June 1923 - 24 June 2012) Read full review
Review: An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin
User Review - Chris - GoodreadsI had to read this book for a class on the Holocaust. We were given an extensive list to choose from and I picked this one because we have been told how if the Nazis had actually exterminated the Jews ... Read full review
Review: An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin
User Review - GoodreadsSuch unbridled optimism and daring with all hell being unleashed around you. I salute you, Gad Beck.
Review: An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin
User Review - George Ilsley - GoodreadsThere's something about this memoir which is completely captivating. First of all, the author only died a few months ago, which is a kind of miracle: a gay, Jewish, Berliner who worked in the ... Read full review
