The Shelf Where My Story Lives

Veit Schmidt and Jürgend Ostler in Löwenherz bookshop.

VIENNA “Where are the lesbian books?” I had just entered Löwenherz, one of Vienna’s most famous and oldest lesbian & gay bookstores, when the question slipped out of my mouth. A shop assistant showed me with his arms. “The lesbian books are there,” he said, pointing to a big corner section of the shop. “All this?” I asked. He nodded yes.

I was surrounded by several hundred books, all related to the lesbian feminist issue. I looked at them one by one. In front of the love letters of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville West, I broke down in tears. My reaction made it very real. It was as if each book said to me, “You are not alone.” I stood in front of the evidence that my world existed.

I rarely see these books in a “normal” bookshop. In those, lesbians/queers don’t really exist. Being here made me understand how that really does feel on a daily basis. It all came out in my bittersweet tears. I realized the importance of our stories being accessible like this. On these bookshelves stand our history, our stories, our memories—and each one of them is visible for the eyes to see. It was as if I got a piece of me back. A piece of me that had been hiding because I did not even know it existed. Dear God, make this shop stay open forever.