The Hidden Life of Eleonore Behar

A Queer Holocaust Survivor from Stuttgart

Guest article by Anna Hájková, Reader of Modern Continental European History at the University of Warwick

On April 19, 1945, a group of Hungarian Jews arrived at the Theresienstadt ghetto, having been transported from the Immendorf forced labor camp. Among them were 23-year-old Anna Lenji from Budapest and her husband, Loránd. They were quartered in the Dresden barracks, where Lenji’s health was checked by a nurse named Eleonore Behar from Stuttgart. Behar became Lenji’s close friend during their time in Theresienstadt. Eventually, Lenji realized that Behar’s feelings were more than just friendship—Behar was a lesbian. After the war, Behar offered to take Lenji’s family to Stuttgart, but Loránd, a Zionist, wanted to go to Palestine. Anna Lenji spoke with affection of her friend: “Lotte [as she called Behar] was fantastic. I fell in love—I was very fond of her.”

Why should we pay attention to this particular woman among the 140,000 prisoners of Theresienstadt? Eleonore Behar is one of the very few queer prisoners known to us, and she was the first woman whose name has come to light in this context. While deviant sexual desire was often stigmatised in the camps and ghettos, those who engaged in same-sex relationships were rarely remembered or were portrayed in a negative light.

Sexuality in concentration camps was complex. Many camps were monosexual, leaving people who wanted to engage in sexual activity with few options. Most prisoners who had same-sex experiences did not identify as homosexual before or after their imprisonment; it was a response to circumstance. However, these stories are still a part of queer history. Theresienstadt, where men and women were interned together, created a different dynamic. Some prisoners, such as the Zionist Fredy Hirsch or Berlin’s female impersonator Harry ‘Hambo’ Heymann, who emigrated to Denmark, are part of this queer history.

As several historians, including Ulrike Janz, Insa Eschebach, and Uta Rautenberg have pointed out, homophobia was pronounced within the prisoner and survivor communities. This homophobia wasn’t simply a continuation of interwar attitudes, nor was it entirely shaped by Nazi ideology. Rather, it was a product of the camps themselves, where gender roles became more strictly enforced. People who engaged in sexual barter were often dismissed as immoral and wayward.

The perception of queer Holocaust victims as “monsters” had long-lasting consequences. It meant they were denied the opportunity to bear witness, as our traditional narrative expects the storyteller to be virtuous. This omission, what Gayatri Spivak called “epistemic violence,” erased the lives of many queer Holocaust victims. They were rendered invisible, as if their existence and experiences were of no value. That’s why I called my book on queer Holocaust history “People without history are dust.”

Queer women, in particular, disappeared from history twice: first as queer, and second as women. In order to counteract this erasure, I have made it my mission to gather all traces of queer behavior from Theresienstadt, and to uncover the names and stories of Jewish lesbians and gays who were imprisoned there. My research into Behar’s life began in 2008, when I found Lenji’s oral history interview in the Yad Vashem archive.

Eleonore Behar was born on May 9, 1922, in Stuttgart. Her father, Abraham Behar, was a Jewish carpet dealer originally from Turkey, while her mother, Anna Oberthan, was non-Jewish. Eleonore and her sister Victoria were part of the Jewish community, making them “Geltungsjüdinnen” from 1935. In 1938, her father was arrested during Kristallnacht and sent to Dachau, where he was later murdered. Eleonore was protected from deportation for a time due to her mixed heritage, but in February 1945, she was sent to Theresienstadt.

Theresienstadt in 1945, though still a terrible place, was not as overcrowded as it had been in earlier years. In fall 1944, the SS deported two thirds of the prisoners to Auschwitz. Eleonore worked first in the mica workshop and then as an outpatient nurse for the Health department within the Jewish self-administration. It was in this capacity that she met Anna Lenji. When the ghetto was liberated by the Red Army on May 9, 1945, Eleonore turned 23. After liberation, she returned to Stuttgart, but in 1947, she emigrated to Santiago de Chile with her mother to join her sister.

I could piece together Eleonore’s later life with the help of researchers Siegfried Bassler and Irma Glaub. In Santiago, she lived a quiet life, helping her sister raise her children and working in a Jewish shop. Eleonore died in 2011, just days after being admitted to a Jewish retirement home. No one from the Holocaust survivor organizations remembered her name, and she was buried in a simple, unmarked grave. For a long time, I believed that implied she was alone and impoverished.

In my research, I found a photograph of Eleonore from 1947. She is smiling slightly, with strong, curly hair and big eyes. Through genealogical research, I eventually made contact with her great-grandnephew Tomas, who was surprised but intrigued to learn that his aunt was a lesbian. Tomas described Eleonore as a strong woman who had never married, and who lived with her domineering mother until her death. She liked to smoke, was there for her nieces, nephews, and their children, and was a woman of her own mind.

Finally, I was able to track down Anna Lenji through the archives of the International Red Cross. We met in May 2017 in Israel. Lenji was delighted that someone remembered her friend. She spoke warmly of Eleonore and their time together in Theresienstadt. Lenji noticed that Behar was attracted to her romantically, and turned her down gently. Lenji, who passed away in April 2024, also showed me the photograph Behar gave her that she has kept.

Eleonore Behar’s story stretches from Stuttgart to Theresienstadt, from Santiago to Haifa. It’s no coincidence that she was not included in oral history projects or remembered by her family for her relationships with women. The persistent homophobia in survivor communities made it difficult for stories like hers to be told, and even recently, the Stolpersteine in Stuttgart skirted commemorating Behar as a queer woman. But as historians, we can challenge these biases and uncover the stories that have been silenced.

I may not have Eleonore’s testimony, but I have her photographs, her letters, and her legacy. In doing queer history of the Holocaust, I know that a happy ending is often not possible, but bringing these stories to light is a step toward justice.

The German version of this article can be found here.

This article is an adapted version of an article originally published on the LSBTTIQ Baden-Württemberg webpage

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