willi zimmt

Willi Zimmt was born February 26, 1905 in Berlin. His father died in World War 1 He worked as an employee at a hotel and also a tobacco seller. During July of 1937, he was reported to the Gestapo for being gay. 

He was sentenced to several years in prison. At the end of his sentence, he was captured by the Gestapo and sent to Buchenwald in July 1943. He sadly was forced to work in the quarry, one of the worst jobs in a camp, for the entire time he was there. He was then transferred to the Dora camp, facing terrible conditions in the tunnels, and then to Bergen-Belsen. He died there April 9,1944. 

I found a response to a letter his mother Ida Krokowski had written to Buchenwald trying to find out information about her son. The letter was written a month after he was killed, and the commander cruelly responded that Willi had been transferred and the next camp might be able to answer her, mentioning nothing of his murder. In this portrait, I have represented Willi as the bright, queer individual he was. I like to think his mother was accepting of him and just wanted to find out if her son was safe. The reality can often be anything but, as a majority of queer people turned into the Nazis were betrayed by their own families and associates.

Sources and Further Reading:

https://www.stiftung-gedenkstaetten.de/themen/online-ausstellungen/rosa-winkel/homosexuelle-haeftlinge-in-den-konzentrationslagern-buchenwald-und-mittelbau-dora/willi-zimmt

Arolsen Archives files on Willi/Willy Zimmt

USHMM Archive files on Ernst Willy Zimmt