Under the Pink Triangle
In Katie Moore’s moving historical novel Under the Pink Triangle, gay men navigate Dachau in 1942.
Manny and Rudi are imprisoned in Dachau, forced to wear pink triangles, because they are gay. They form a deep connection with one another. Meanwhile, Augustin, a guard, searches the camp for his son, Otto. Desperate, he commits atrocious acts against other prisoners in a futile attempt to protect Otto from the violent reality of the Nazis’ longest-operating concentration camp.
Between the three rotating narrators are short vignettes from the perspectives of prisoners who are about to die, fleshing out life in the camp and illuminating its horrors in evocative terms. Even those who occupy a mere few pages are fleshed out well, including a WWI veteran who used to be proud to serve Germany, but who dies as the result of a bet between guards. Elsewhere, starving prisoners turn on fellow prisoners for extra portions of bread.
The book walks a delicate line, intertwining horrific, visceral violence with brief flashes of love and humanity. In one unflinching scene, a doctor’s assistant brings a dying prisoner within sight of the sunset before taking his life. This jarring caduceus of darkness and light is the hardy spine of the book, illustrating that people will do anything to be kind to each other even in the grimmest of circumstances.
The prose is beautiful, evoking sharp emotions. Its harsh descriptions of emaciated prisoners, at times both pitying and dehumanizing, vivify their mistreatment: they appear as “bent, twisted creatures, a parody of man.” This sets high stakes for Manny and Rudi’s budding relationship, as either could die at any moment, leaving the other alone again.
Small acts of kindness are exchanged between prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp in Under the Pink Triangle, a masterful depiction of humanity’s capacity for both violence and love.
Reviewed by
Leah Block
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