I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual by Pierre Seel

Author:Pierre Seel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2011-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

The lend-lease contract had been operating for years. With the start of the Russian offensive, Great Britain had provided material assistance to the Soviets. This support had been extended to all the anti-Axis powers, then had been made official by the United States. A law initiated by Roosevelt had been passed in March 1941. In the summer of 1945, on the shores of the Black Sea, that law was translated into convoys of food for Odessa as well as weapons, airplanes, and spare parts, for world peace had not been attained as yet—the Japanese were still holding out. When those convoys headed back, they took along contingents of West European prisoners. French General Marie-Pierre-Joseph-François Koenig came to visit us, while de Gaulle, who truly cared about our long, painful exile, was received by Stalin in pomp and circumstance. We waited for our repatriation with growing impatience. But the embarkments by sea were few and far between, the docks were crowded and the waiting was interminable. To help us exercise patience, they made us practice embarking with identity cords around our necks.

One day, yet again, I found myself on the dock with the cord around my neck indicating that I was Pierre Celle from Belfort. At the last minute, however, an officer came running up, gave some counterorders, and several of us were removed from the ship that was sailing to Marseilles via Sardinia. Priority was being given to a few women, who walked past us and took our places. Some were pregnant and had probably been raped by the occupiers. But others, who seemed more withdrawn, would probably have their heads shaved upon arriving—the punishment inflicted on Frenchwomen who had consorted with the enemy. We were so furious that in the evening we sang terribly misogynist songs in our encampment. A few men chanted, “Women overboard!”

Later we learned that the ship had struck a mine and blown up in the Dardanelles: there were no survivors. The authorities had notified my parents that I would be sailing on that ship, and when they read the newspapers they believed that I had tragically perished at sea.

Meanwhile lend-lease was terminated, and we were still waiting. First it was a rumor, then a certainty: there was no ship for us. I was all the more frightened because the encampment was filled with mutterings of anger and revolt. Then we were informed that we would be repatriated all the same, but in the other direction: by rail through Rumania, Germany, Holland, and Belgium. Again six hundred miles, but by the opposite route.

And that was what happened. I remember that the Dutch offered us apples, and that we then received a liter of red wine in Blanc-Misseron, at the French border. The closer we got to our beloved French capital, the more strictly we were checked. New arrests of collaborators were made right in front of us. And more people died along the way.

At last, we reached Paris. I cannot describe my emotions when I set foot on Parisian soil.

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