Berliner Schnauze und jiddische Chuzpe. Dies ist die Geschichte des homosexuellen Juden Gad Beck in Berlin zwischen den Jahren 1923 und 1945 - einer Zeit, in der das Ungeheuerliche Alltag war. Es ist die Geschichte eines Lebenskünstlers, dem es mit Mut, Frechheit, Esprit und einem Quentchen Glück gelungen ist, außer sich selbst auch das Leben zahlreicher weiterer Juden zu retten.
“So intense and authentic that [the] narrative pulls you along.”—Christopher Lehman–Haupt, The New York TimesGad Beck, a half-Jewish German, managed to evade the Nazis and live illegally, underground, in Berlin throughout the duration of World War II. While that in itself was notable, Beck didn’t simply exist in some nocturnal world of hiding. Coming of age as a gay man during the war, he also helped organize a Jewish youth group, free friends from the Gestapo, and maintain a series of romantic relationships. The result is An Underground Life: a Holocaust memoir that conveys the surreal horror of the times but also focuses more on living than dying, and captures a life that was fueled as much by a sense of romance, adventure, and humor, as it was by suffering.