I have planned in detail and yet still the characters take over. Yet they do so in order to make the plot work. They seem to be working with me on this.
So, the enigmatic Adelhard Braun is gay and this will explain his disappearance twice – once when he tries conversion therapy, which he rejects, and once when he is finally arrested by the Nazis.
He has a festive housekeeper, Frau Sliwnsky. Verene Sliwinsky. She is a lesbian as is Tilda Laski. But I will not say too much more. There could be too many spoilers.
It is forcing me to examine what it was like for gay people in the Nazi regime and indeed before then. This story really starts in 1909 when the Gabriela of the title is still a young child and finding life with her mother and sister difficult.
Lesbians were actually quite open about their relationships in the 1920s. There were several magazines published for them e.g Die Freundin, Frauenliebe. Women joined in societies. These were dismantled when Hitler came to power in 1933,
There is a sense that lesbians were tolerated slightly more than gay men yet here is also evidence of harsher treatment by the time we get to the 1940s.
Paragraph 175 of the anti sodomy act, established in 1871, was extended in 1935 to mean that even looking at a man with sexual intent, became a crime in 1935. However, it could not apply to lesbians… because lesbians don’t practise sodomy.
Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice becomes important in this new story. Adelhard Braun gifts a copy of it to Gabriela’s father. There are strong connections between this and her birth though she doesn’t know it.
The early part of the story evolves round Gabriela being puzzled by all of this. Part of her resolution is at last understanding.
