Trans+ people and Nazi Germany didn’t exactly go hand-in-hand, with the LGBTQ+ community commonly sent alongside Jewish people, disabled people and traveller communities to concentration camps. But queer people existed in Nazi Germany, and some of them went on to achieve remarkable things. And here is the story of one you would have never heard of before.
I am My Own Woman tells the remarkable life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a trans+ woman living in Germany during the rise of the Third Reich, the Holocaust and the division of the nation into East and West Germany. Spending her time as an antique furniture collector and museum curator, we see insights unlike any other as to the realties of the Nazi rule, the horrors inflicted on groups of ‘undesirables’, which she found herself a part of, and the failed socialism experiment that East Germany experienced until the fall of the Berlin Wall.
I read a lot of books offering unique insights into out world and the times that have come before, but nothing quite like this. The short publication goes into much, sometimes graphic, detail about the lives of the queer community under Nazi rule, and the experiences of trans+ people specifically at a time when being trans+ wasn’t as understood as it was today. The fact that she rose to the number of challenges she did, from societal, to military and legal, and still created a world-renowned Gründerzeit Museum collection almost single-handedly is a testament not only to her strength and resilience, but also the dedication she had to her craft and to keeping a small fragment of craft history alive.
This unique book, written by a remarkable author unlike any other, is a powerful retelling of a time in history never explored through these lenses. Von Mahlsdorf’s writings tell so eloquently a story that we all need to be reading.
Rating: ★★★★★
I am My Own Woman (ISBN: 1-57344-010-8) was published in 1992. A copy is available to borrow from the LGBTQ+ Lending Library in the LGBTQ+ Lounge
