Anna Hájková’s People Without History Are Dust: Queer Desire in the Holocaust is a short book about the experiences of doubly marginalized Holocaust victims. Specifically, People without History are Dust is about “acts and practices” rather than ways of being. That is to say, it is not about Jews who would identify as gay, lesbian, or queer per se. It is about Jews who engaged in same-sex sexual activity for any number of complex reasons.
The very structure of the book reflects the ever-evolving landscape of queer Holocaust history. The first chapter was originally published as an essay in German in 2018; the author translated it into English for publication in 2020 but was not able to complete the project until now. The second chapter, similarly, is a translation of an essay that was originally published in German in 2021. Sections have been added and rewritten. Historiographical research has been updated. Notably, the book has been revised with the true name of one of the subjects, who had only been referred to pseudonymously in the historical record. In this way, People Without History Are Dust itself is an artifact of the recent evolution of its field of inquiry.
The book traverses two key threads: why the archive is what it is, and how it can be used to make historical meaning of the subjects’ experiences. As Hájková notes, “Testifying is a social act: that means that we tell our lives within the framework of the socially acceptable.” Testifying about same-sex sexual experiences was not socially acceptable during the lifetimes of most Holocaust survivors. Accordingly, Hájková draws from a fairly sparse array of archival subjects. The book comprises meaningful, close reads of the records left behind by a limited number of individuals.
People Without History Are Dust grapples with the complex dynamics that governed sexual relations during the Holocaust, especially in the camps. Hájková stresses the material realities of incarceration in concentration camps, which were largely monosexual spaces, and which she argues fostered their own distinct variety of homophobia in a setting where social capital was paramount to basic survival. Hájková also mines the boundaries of sexual identity in the context of the nature of free will during the Holocaust. As she writes, consent “is not an applicable category for most relationships in the Holocaust. Almost all relationships were marked by dependency, hierarchy, and violence, whether directly or indirectly.” The lens through which Hájková looks at the Holocaust is deeply thought-provoking.
People without History are Dust is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in Holocaust history or queer history. It is a challenging book in many ways, but engaging with it is one way to resist the historical erasure suffered by its subjects.
Hallel Yadin is an archivist and writer based in Philadelphia.
