Hella Knabes advertisement

Content warning: In this text Anti-Semitism is discussed.

The seamstress Hella Knabe published this advertisement in an Austrian newspaper in approximately 1937. As a result of police investigations into issuing and sending a trans magazine to her customers, Hella and her transfeminine wife Lily moved to Vienna that year. There they wanted to build a new life. In October 1938, Hella turned to her local chapter of NSDAP (Nazi party). In order to secure her existence and even before the “Verordnung zur Ausschaltung der Juden aus dem deutschen Wirtschaftsleben" (Ordinance on the Elimination of Jews from German Economic Life) came into force, which stipulated the forced closure of Jewish-run businesses, she wrote:

“In my distress, I turned to the party office in my local group for advice and learned there, to my joy, that they would like to see a number of Jewish lingerie and corset shops in the area where I live also pass into Aryan hands and that funds from the Reichsbürgerkredit (Reich Citizens' Loan) are also made available to poor Aryan applicants. My dearest, long-cherished wish of no longer being dependent on male customers […] can come true in this way.”

Due to everyday discrimination, police investigations, outings, court proceedings and prison sentences, those affected were particularly at risk of unemployment and loosing their housing. Those who were in prison or in a psychiatric hospital could not work, pay rent and feed their families. People with a criminal record were less likely to be hired. The attribution of gender nonconformity could become a threat to existence. Some of those affected were forced to engage in illegal, less visible and less collegial work, or to steal. Another strategy that could be used by those affected who were viewed as “aryan” was political ingratiation, for example through antisemitism.