Paul O'Montis

Name Paul O'Montis Date of Birth 1894 Place of Birth Germany Paul O'Montis was a well-known singer of the Berlin cabaret scene from the middle of the 1920s. He was featured in several major revues and on dozens of recordings. As a homosexual and a Jew, however, his career was ended after the Nazis came to power. In 1933 he emigrated to Vienna, Austria. He fled to Prague after the 1938 Anschluss (the German annexation of Austria). In 1939, the Germans had just occupied western Czechoslovakia - Paul O'Montis was arrested and, in June 1940, sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp - just an hour by car from the Berlin theatres in which he used to appear. O'Montis died at the camp within two months. In July 1940, at the age 46, he was forced by a Blockältester (eldest of prisoner's barrack) to kill himself because he was gay. Notes -