From the early post-war years through the economic miracle and into the 'Swinging Sixties': stories like hers were almost impossible to tell for decades. The story of her childhood in East Westphalia, the schoolgirl with a love of music, the student at Hamburg University is also the story of a lesbian young woman in the age of ultra-homophobia. In the summer of 2020, Luise F. Pusch wrote down her memories of her oppressive lesbian childhood and youth. The Corona Lockdown acted as a trigger: even in the reactionary 1950s and 1960s and far beyond the so-called sexual revolution, contact with fellow human beings was threatening, society dangerous, solitude a salvation and respite from the compulsion to dissemble and from paralysing fear. Gay writers such as Paul Monette, Didier Eribon, Douglas Stuart and Daniel Schreiber have offered harrowing accounts of the struggles and convulsions of their gay childhood and adolescence. Lesbians have continued to remain silent. Luise F. Pusch breaks this lesbian silence about the unbearable growing up in those homophobic post-war decades. As personal as she is reflective, the feminist linguist bears witness to a hitherto much-silenced reality: 'What was done to us must finally come to light,' she says, 'so that the same mistakes don't happen again and again and to prevent future suffering.' Pusch already made a name for herself 41 years ago with her autobiographical account 'Sonja. Eine Melancholie für Fortgeschrittene' about the lesbian everyday life of two female students from 1965 to 1976. Sonja' begins where 'Against Silence' ends.