Book Talk: People without History are Dust, Anna Hájková

is delighted to host Dr Anna Hájková in conversation with Dr Christine Schmidt about Dr. Hájková’s new book, People without History are Dust: Queer Desire in the Holocaust.

People Without History are Dust explores same-sex desire in the Holocaust, telling the gripping stories of queer Jews that have been long silenced by the homophobia of survivors.

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.

Dr Anna Hájková is Reader of modern European continental history at the University of Warwick and author of The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt (OUP, 2020). Her book, People without History are Dust: Queer Desire in the Holocaust, translated by William Ross Jones, is published by the University of Toronto Press, October 2025.

Dr Christine Schmidt is Deputy Director and Head of Research at The Wiener Holocaust Library.

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