Born in Haguenau, Alsace, Seel grew up in Mulhouse, where his parents owned a bakery. Sexually active at 17, he came to the attention of the police when he naively reported the theft of his watch during a homosexual encounter in the park in night time. The police kept a list of the city homosexuals, which fell into german hands when Germany invaded France in 1940 and annexed Alsace. The Gestapo arrested Seel on 3 May 1941.

After ten days of beating, he and other local homosexuals were interned in the the Schirmeck-Vorbruch concentration camp, near Strasbourg, where homosexuals were the most despised of prisoners, and where Seel suffered unspeakable horrors for the sole "crime" of being a homosexual. He gnawed hunger and strenous forced labour - and witnessed scenes of appalling savagery.

The love of Pierre’s life was a boy two years older than he – Jo. When Pierre was arrested and later at the camp he had not seen Jo – so he thought that he had escaped the round-up of gay people.

One day at the camp they were all summoned and made to form a square. The Nazis entered the middle of the square with their dogs. A young man was dragged into the square stripped naked and had a bucket forced over his head – then the dogs were set on him and they tore him to pieces. It was Jo. Pierre had nightmares for the rest of his life after witnessing the death of his loved one.

Inexplicably released in 1941, he was drafted into the German army, saw action on various fronts and managed to survive the war. He unwillingly fought on the Eastern Front, and eventually was taken prisoner by the Russians.

After the war, Steel made a "pact of silence" with himself. Convinced by a priest that he was in a state of mortal sin, Seel set out to eradicate his homosexuality, keeping silent for years about his "pink triangle" past. For nearly forty years he kept his experiences - including torture, humiliation, and witnessing the vicious murder of his lover at the hands of the Nazis - a secret in order to cover up his homosexuality. He married in August 1950 and raised three children. His marriage broke down in 1978.

In May 1981 he attended a lecture in Toulouse on nazi deportation of homosexuals. He afterwards approached the speaker and revealed his past experiences. He then began attending mettings of David and Jonathan, an organisation of gay Catholics.

On April 1981 the Archbishop of Strasbourg remarked at a press conference, "I consider homosexuality a sickess". Steel became inspired with a sense of obligation to obtain recognition for what had happened to some 350,000 homosexuals during the war, so he wrote a public response to the Archbishop in November 1981, and his secret was out. His wife divorced him and alienated him his children.

Throughout most of the 1980s and 1990s Seel sought official government recognition as a victim of Nazism both for his own sake and also to set the historical record straight. He published his memoirs in 1994. In this brief, powerful memoir, he recalls the details of his arrest and torture by the Gestapo and his horrific experiences at a concentration camp in Alsace. Recognition finally came in 1995.

"The Liberation," he writes, "was for others." Finally, haunted by his experiences and by the silence of others, he decided to bear witness to an aspect of the Holocaust rarely seen. As he noted, "If I do not speak, I will become the accomplice of my torturers." Seel remained active at 72 in his personal crusade, publicly airing the long-overlooked tragedy of the homosexual holocaust. His account of his suffering and his plea for justice are heartrending in their dignified restraint.

Steel, after he retired, lived in Toulouse, where his notoriety resulted in at least one beating by "gay bashers". Nazi are not yet dead!

Seel died of cancer in Toulouse. He is buried in Bram, in the Aude département. On 23 February 2008, the municipality of Toulouse renamed a street in the city in honour of Pierre Seel. The name plaque reads "Rue Pierre Seel - Déporté français pour homosexualité - 1923-2005".