Skip to content 
The punishment, humiliation, destruction systematics of body and mind. Das Ryon was one of these punishments. It was designed specifically for homosexual prisoners in a private camp by an officer particular and she was cruel calculated. The name meant the ride, but there was nothing noble or chivalrous in what this term designated.
This story is that of a man who suffered Das Riton. A man who bore the after-effects of this torture for more than 50 years. A man whose testimony gave some months before his death in 1999 made it possible to understand exactly what the Nazis were doing in this room torture. His name was Fernand Lecler and this is what happened to him at the camp Flossenburg between 1943 and 1945.
Fernand Lecler was years old when he was arrested in Paris in February he was a dancer, not a big star from the opera, no, a cabaret dancer in the small theaters of Pigal and Montmartre. A modest job but one that loved it. Dance was his life, his expression, his freedom. Fernand had the physique of a slim, supple dancer, graceful, long and fine muscles, a perfect posture, a way of movement that attracted attention.
He was also an attractive young man with black eyes and a smile that turned heads. It was precisely this smile which was going to cause his loss. One evening in February, after a spectacle, Fernand had smiled at a man in the street. An exchange of glances, nothing more. But this man was an indicator of the guestapu and this smile, this fraction of seconds of connection was enough as proof.
The guestapo came to pick him up next morning. They searched his small apartment, found some compromising photographs, portraits of friends, memories of evening and took him away. After two weeks of interrogation at the headquarters of the Guestapo, Avenue Foche, Fernand fut transferred to Germany. In March 1943, he arrived at the Flossenburg camp in Bavaria.
Flosenburg was a camp of forced labor specialized in the extraction of granites. Thousands prisoners died there every year, exhausted by work in the careers. But for the prisoners pink triangle, Flosenburg reserved something special. The camp had a deputy commander named Hans Schreber, an SS officer of a forty years old, former doctor who had developed a particular interest for homosexual prisoners.
An interest that had nothing medical or scientist. It was something something darker, more personal. Schreiber had created a program special for homosexuals in the camp. a program he called Umertsung from ourchmerz, pain rehabilitation. And at The heart of this program was Das Ron.
Fernand would soon discover this what that meant. The first days from Fernand to Flossenburg were a ordinary nightmare, if one can qualify anything in a camp concentration usually. He was shaved, disinfected, marked. We gave his striped uniform and his triangle pink. He was assigned to the blocks on homosexual barracks separated from rest of the camp.
A punishment additional. The work was exhausting. Every day, the prisoners of the block were sent in granite quarries. They broke stones, carried huge blocks, pushing carts loaded in the rain, under the sun, under the snow, without pause, without rest, without pity. Fernand with his body dancer, was not made for this work.