This is an absoutely horrifying book. It goes into detail about all the atrocities committed by the Nazis. In learning about concentration camps, you hear about what was done to Jewish people, but gloss over the fact that criminals, Romani people, political prisoners, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals were there, too. Homosexuals were especially singled out for hatred, harassment, and torture, although the German ones were treated slightly better than Jewish people by virtue of being German, even if they were "filthy degenerates."

All the homosexuals in the camps were gay men, but the book actually explains why - lesbians were considered still useful because they could be bred regardless of how they felt about it. That's its own kind of horrifying.

This book also goes into a lot of detail about how concentration camps were run, which is something I don't remember hearing from other accounts - their power structures, the delegation of work and the kind of work they did, and the pecking order between the different "triangles" (inmates were color-coded by offense - yellow for Jews, pink for homosexuals, green for criminals, red for political prisoners, etc.). One thing that the narrator focused on was how prisoners with more power would take "lovers" - other men that they would have sex with in exchange for favors like easier work and more food - despite being straight, and they still viewed men who loved other men as degenerates. Several times, the narrator presents situations like that and then points out how sex with other men was fine if it was to satisfy your urges, but degenerate if you genuinely loved the other man.

This book is simultaneously fascinating and horrifying. I learned a lot, but about the depths of Nazi cruelty and the realities of suffering in the death camps. But it's really a story that needs to be told. Homosexuals were denied reparations after being freed because homosexuality was a crime and criminals were not considered innocents who deserved reparations. This is part of history I never learned about in history class, and it's important to know - even if reading about it is heartwrenching.