The Pink Triangle and Gay Camp Identity in Marian Pankowskiʼs Writings

Abstract

In this article, the author investigates how Marian Pankowski construes in his writing homosexual camp prisoners (Schwulen) as the largely ignored and devoiced figures of shame, close, she argues, to the Muselmann, another marginalized cipher of shame in the concentration camp. Pankowski probes the identity of the Schwule by positing him amidst the shifting historical and political realities of World War II and postwar Western Europe, and discreetly questions the possibility of his redemption.