Queer­ness remains one of the most stig­ma­tized and over­looked aspects of Holo­caust his­to­ry, often erased due to the lin­ger­ing homo­pho­bia of sur­vivors. Peo­ple With­out His­to­ry Are Dust chal­lenges this silence, weav­ing togeth­er com­pelling sto­ries of Ger­man, Dutch, Czech, and Pol­ish Jew­ish Holo­caust vic­tims and sur­vivors — includ­ing Anne Frank, Mol­ly Apple­baum, Mar­got Heuman, and Gad Beck — whose expe­ri­ences help illu­mi­nate the hid­den his­to­ry of queer­ness in a time of genocide.

Draw­ing on exten­sive archival research, this ground­break­ing book uncov­ers the lives of those who were dou­bly mar­gin­al­ized, not only per­se­cut­ed as Jews but also as queer indi­vid­u­als. In doing so, it con­fronts the ways in which his­to­ry has exclud­ed or min­i­mized their expe­ri­ences, urg­ing us to ques­tion nor­ma­tive accounts of the Holocaust.

By shed­ding light on these long-over­looked sto­ries, Peo­ple With­out His­to­ry Are Dust deep­ens our under­stand­ing of iden­ti­ty, sur­vival, and mem­o­ry, remind­ing us why an inclu­sive and com­plex approach to his­to­ry is essen­tial — not just for the sake of the past, but in ser­vice to the present and the future as well.