Book talk of Hans Soetaert on 02/06/2026 for Brno Pride Week
In the war year 1942, someone pulls out of an old-paper-container in Brno a guestbook that had belonged to Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935), the Jewish-German sexologist and precursor LGBT-activist. In doing so, this person saved this valuable guestbook for posterity. It is now part of the collections of the Literature Archive in Marbach in Germany. But how on earth did this Hirschfeld guestbook ever end up in the garbage like that?
On June 2, 2026, for Brno Pride Week, Belgian researcher Hans Soetaert (°1968) will deliver a talk at the Institut Paměti národa and document how this came about, and why Brno plays such a quintessential role in the afterlife (1935–1942) of Magnus Hirschfeld.
Soetaert’s talk is based on his 2025 book The Scattered Library of which two copies will be raffled off after the presentation.
We would like to invite members of the press to attend the June 2nd event so they can better assess the whole story.
Soetaert would also like to request that one specific question for the Brno readership could be passed along: does anyone in Brno have at their home sexology-themed books that have rubber stamps in them from Hirschfeld’s Berlin “Institut für Sexualwissenschaft” (see attached photos)? These books might have originated from the personal library of the Brno doctor Stanislav Kaděrka (1906–1986).
The author will be in Brno from June 2 until June 6 and will be available for interviews in the evenings (after 7 pm).
The author speaks Dutch, French, English and also understands German. He can be reached here.