Reports from the Holocaust: The Story of An AIDS Activist

by Larry Kramer

Without a doubt the most important gay political writer of our time, Kramer's passionate essays have mobilized the gay community for more than a decade. A cofounder of Gay Men's Health Crisis, ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), and author of the controversial novel Faggots, Kramer has shown how mighty the pen can be.

Genres: LGBT, History, Nonfiction, Queer, Memoir, Gay, Science

454 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Larry Kramer (born June 25, 1935) was an American playwright, author, public health advocate and gay rights activist. He was nominated for an Academy Award, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and was twice a recipient of an Obie Award. In response to the AIDS crisis he founded Gay Men's Health Crisis, which became the largest organization of its kind in the world. He wrote The Normal Heart, the first serious artistic examination of the AIDS crisis. He later founded ACT UP, a protest organization widely credited with having changed public health policy and the public's awareness of HIV and AIDS.[1] "There is no question in my mind that Larry helped change medicine in this country. And he helped change it for the better. In American medicine there are two eras. Before Larry and after Larry," said Dr. Anthony Fauci.[1] Kramer lived in New York City and Connecticut.

Reviews

[Jaykumar B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kramer's work is awe-inspiring yet exhausting, it slaps the reader whilst it presents a sense urgency, fear, anger, rage, and fury, and sadness... The author refuses to hold back anything and shouts as loud as he can as he puts Reagan, Koch, The New York Times, Bush, Clinton, and many others to task for what he terms the 'intentional genocide' i.e. AIDS. AIDS is not simply a medical crisis. It is also a political one fueled by homophobia and hatred against all the minorities that do not form the part of the general population.

Kramer says it outright, without sugarcoating no words or facts, AIDS is the holocaust of the minorities (gays, blacks, hispanics, prostitutes, and others) and Reagan is the Hilter.

a life marred by discrimination for being what one is, and being punished, sidelined, and ignored is shown with sheer charisma of a man who gave birth to two of the most profoundly influential AIDS organizations in the USA, GMHC and ACT UP. This is the fruit of Kramer's struggle wherein he often refers to his other works like 'The Normal Heart', 'Faggots', 'Destiny of Me', and 'Just Say No'.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reports From The Holocaust is a collection of Larry Kramer's writings on AIDS between the initial outbreak in 1981 to 1994. It is a remarkable look at his life and the creation of the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and ACT-UP and the devastating history of the AIDS plague.

Towards the end of the book Larry Kramer writes "I recently reread all my written AIDS rhetoric, all the shit I've written and delivered since the beginning, and I noted sadly, as I knew I would, that everything I wrote and delivered in 1981 and 1982 and 1983 and 1984 and 1985 and 1986 and 1987 and 1988 and 1989 and 1990 and 1991 and 1992 and 1993 would be just as suitable for me to deliver today."

Sadly, here in January of 2015, everything that Larry Kramer spoke about and feared as come to fruition. The gay community is still at odds with itself. There still isn't a cure for AIDS but now we gay men are being encouraged to take PreP. It makes me sad and yet I'm out of tears to realize that, if we can't get our act together after 30 FUCKING years then there really isn't any hope left for us.

[Sabrina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admire Larry Kramer and I think he's a genius in his own way, but it's sometimes hard to read his rants about the inadequacy of the gay community's response to the AIDS crisis.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to rate. Kramer's politics are a narrow single-issue sort of liberalism, basically identity politics combined with support for the Democrats, whatever his criticisms of various politicians. For example, he goes on and on about the importance of having political lobbyists in Washington to try and persuade the reactionary Reagan administration to do something about the very catastrophe which it had allowed to unfold.

At the same time I found the book very informative. His attacks on the NIH and the New York Times are more than justified. Kramer was describing AIDS deaths as a deliberate holocaust, a form of mass murder by the government. It is hard to argue with his points on the criminal inaction by the government. At one point he says he has 500 friends and acquaintances who have died from the virus. As he says, the epidemic could have been contained, if it had been investigated rapidly and if authorities had followed the advice of epidemiologists and launched a major public health campaign.

Kramer also says that if something like AIDS was happening mostly to straight people, there would have been a massive government effort to stop it. This goes to the heart of the short-sightedness of identity politics. At one point he notes that 25,000 people in the US had died from AIDS in the seven years since the epidemic was first noticed. That is undeniably an indictment of the system. But what would Kramer think about COVID-19, which has killed thirty times that number - 768,847 - in less than two years in the United States? We know that the vast majority of these deaths were preventable. The ruling class has allowed the virus to spread in the working class as a whole - of all races, genders, sexual orientations.

[6655321 · Rating 1 out of 5]

while i disagree with and dislike Kramer as a person, i think its sorta important to read his writing because you get a really strong sense of how Gay conservatism managed to portray itself as a radical position

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am having some trouble putting my thoughts together on this one, but here goes my best attempt at present.

I have read many books about the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which Kramer rightly refers to as a plague. This one was special. Larry Kramer is likely the most prominent gay activist in recent memory, and his writings in this collection are absolutely frustrating and heartbreaking, because he was frustrated (and incredibly angry) and heartbroken while writing them. It was sobering to read the words of someone who very much believed they would die within the span of a year. Kramer's writing is full of statistics and facts, but it is also full of rage and accusations (not just at powerful people and institutions but also at people at large, including himself). The final speech particularly moved me, and his frustration and despair are palpable. To know the length of time HIV ran rampant without hope of a cure or treatment is one thing, but to read speeches and essays from over an entire decade that all say essentially the same thing because nothing has changed is another. The repetitiveness of some of these is enough to make your blood boil. I very much believe this should be read in schools.

[julietaaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing if you want to know more about what went on in 80s New York when the AIDS epidemic happened and nobody did anything to stop it. But I was also expecting to have more personal stories about Larry. Loved when he described his relationship with Luke.

[Sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting, upsetting, very well-written even if I don't agree with some aspects.

[Sharon Zhang · Rating 5 out of 5]

fucking hell