Pierre Seel Dies; Bore Witness to Nazi Torture of Gays

"As for myself," he wrote in his memoir, "after decades of silence I have made up my mind to speak, to accuse, to bear witness."

With the support of his wife and children, he told his story for the first time. The bishop was tried and fined for his comments, and Mr. Seel found a second career -- and a measure of personal satisfaction -- as a living witness to what had been an almost forgotten episode of persecution.

During the 1930s and 1940s, more than 100,000 men were arrested by Nazi authorities for presumed homosexuality, and many were forced to wear pink triangles, which a later generation adopted as a defiant symbol of gay pride. (In Mr. Seel's case, his prison uniform was marked with a blue bar.) Between 5,000 and 15,000 were interned in concentration camps, where more than 60 percent of them died.

By publishing his memoirs in 1994 -- an English version appeared the following year -- Mr. Seel brought new recognition to the homosexual victims of the Nazi regime. Yet after he appeared on French television, the frail and aging Mr. Seel was attacked and beaten by young men shouting anti-gay epithets.

Five years ago, he recounted his story once more in an American-made documentary, "Paragraph 175," about the Nazi campaign against gay men.

"It was very difficult for him to revisit," Rob Epstein, the film's co-director, said in a telephone interview. "He was both incredibly gentle and incredibly tough."

Returning to Germany for the first time since the war, Mr. Seel received a five-minute standing ovation at the documentary's premiere at the Berlin film festival.

Survivors include his companion, Eric Feliu of Toulouse; his wife; and three children.

With Mr. Seel's death, researchers believe there are fewer than 10 homosexual survivors of Nazi internment camps still alive.