About a book
Jozef
Heriban
Pink Triangle
CONTENT
Jozef Heriban's novel touches on the sensitive topic of homosexuality. The story of the five main characters merges into an exciting story of passionate love, devastating jealousy, and perverse betrayal. It also reveals the secret genocide of gays during the Second World War.
REVIEWS
“This allowed the author to introduce readers to a world that they usually know only from the headlines of tabloid magazines - the world of would-be celebrities who will do anything for their five minutes of fame, the hyenism of some journalists, but also the superficiality of relationships and the relativity of friendships (not only) in the homosexual community. From every line you can feel that the author knows this world well and does not hesitate to tear its gold leaf to reveal the dirt it hides.”
Martin Kasarda, SME
“As we are used to with Heriban, the story is provocative, full of emotions, love, tenderness, bold eroticism. However, sex in the book is not an end in itself. It is not just an empty gesture to entice readers. Sex comes naturally to his stories; he is not afraid to shamelessly call things by their real names.”
Milan Bruno
EXTRACT
In the briefcase were old, yellowed photographs of Richard Steuer, my grandfather. A black notebook with yellowed pages and a piece of prison uniform with a pink triangle.
I was sitting on the sofa in our apartment. Filip had a meeting. He said he would come at night. I was looking at the face of a young black-haired man in his thirties who was smiling into the lens. In one of the photos, he was standing with a young, slim blonde, leaning on a bicycle. I knew that woman. She was my grandmother, Elizabeth Steuer Wasserman.
I opened a black notebook bound with dark blue tape. Some of the leaves were crumpled and, in some places, the German handwriting was illegible.
23 February 1941 Buchenwald
We had beetroot soup for lunch. Two rotten potatoes were floating in it. We also received some porridge that could not be identified and a piece of black bread. I'm still hungry. I feel myself losing energy every day.
It is said that those who are dragged from the barracks will be castrated. They say they are experimenting on them.
I began to pray. I, who never believed in God, now pray every day. And God no longer exists.
I look at the night sky through the barred window. Today, it doesn't matter what the meaning of our life is. We are not human anymore. We're just scared test animals!
My stomach clenched. I was looking at the neat handwriting of a man I knew nothing about until now. I turned a few more yellowed pages.
Richard Steuer was arrested by the Gestapo at the end of November 1940. His fake wedding with his longtime girlfriend Elizabeth Wasserman didn't help either. It didn't help that they were expecting a child together. Someone reported him. Maybe someone from their gay community. He never found out who it was. Neither he nor Elizabeth.
Ely, as her friends called her, was a lesbian. She worked at the office for social affairs as a secretary. When the Gestapo took her husband away at night, she returned to her mother's small apartment in the center of Munich. She was scared. She was terribly afraid that she too would be taken to a concentration camp. Fortunately, that didn't happen. All the time she believed that her man would return home.
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