BOOK REVIEW: The Lilac People by Milo Todd

I keep thinking no more WWII historical fiction because I’ve read so much of it. But then another comes along that I want to read. What is especially compelling is a word-of-mouth recommendation from a friend. So I added The Lilac People by Milo Todd to my TBR-pile.

This is a powerful and important novel that, in the current climate, hits very hard. In the immediate pre-WWII era, Berlin was a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community. They had a vibrant nightlife. But even more critically, there was an Institute of Sexual Science, led by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, where all facets of human sexuality were studied. (Unfortunately, this also led to the creation of a registry of “third sex” members of the community, which was a bonanza for the Nazis when they set out to exterminate these vulnerable people.)

The book uses the language of the times, when transgender people were called transvestites, which is not an acceptable term today. The protagonist of the novel, Bertie, is a trangender man, who works at the Institute as a clerk and sometimes tour guide. The book goes back and forth between 1945, the immediate aftermath of the war, and 1932-33, when queer people were targeted, killed in the streets, or rounded up to be sent to concentration camps. Bertie witnesses the violence, but is able to escape with his girlfriend to a farm out in the countryside when the parents of a friend take them in. The friend, Gert, was supposed to meet them there, but didn’t, and part of the heart of the book is the question of what happened to him. Was he killed? Sent to a concentration camp? Or might he have escaped to America?

The tension in the chapters sent in the early 30s is intense. Readers know what is coming under Hitler, while those living through it are blinded by a belief that things can’t get that bad, until they do. Then it’s too late.

But even more horrifying is the aftermath. I didn’t know that when the camps were liberated by the Allies, the prisoners were freed EXCEPT for those wearing pink or black triangles. LGBTQ+ prisoners were pulled aside and sent on to other prisons – by the Allies – for being “convicted criminals.”

Bertie learns this when he finds a half-dead Dachau escapee collapsed in his garden. Karl, a trans man, had been imprisoned at Dachau and managed to run when he saw fellow queer prisoners being segregated out for further incarceration. Bertie knows now they are still not safe.

At the same time, the Allies are determined to punish the German population for their crimes. By virtue of the fact that Bertie and his girlfriend, Sophia, had not been imprisoned, they are now under suspicion as being Nazis. The American soldiers are rounding up German civilians to transport them to work camps. Bertie is between a rock and a hard place.

The novel is heart-rending. At times, it does get a bit preachy and teachy, when one or another character monologues to get the message across. But it’s an important message, well worth spelling out. This novel is highly recommended.