S.T.A.G.E.
benefit pays tribute to Harold Arlen November 12 in L.A.

On February 4, 1943, the minister of the interior informed the chief of police in Rome that although no charges were made against African American Reed Edwin Peggram and Dane Arne Gerdahn Hauptmann, their “overly intimate relationship” was deplored but tolerated by the local authorities in Montecarlo. He reported that Reed and Arne were living together in a single room with a single bed. They had only been in Montecarlo for a few months when these accusations surfaced. Who knew this information and who reported it? The record was silent onthe name of the informer. But they were identified as two degenerates engaged in sexual perversion. The minister of the interior proposed to an official, the questore of Lucca, to transferone of them to another municipality in Lucca. Reed was told to leave. He departed Montecarlo two weeks later and was sent to Bagni di Lucca, a commune in Tuscany at the foothills of the Appenine Mountains. In May 1943, Italian officials warned Arne not to go to Bagni di Lucca forany reason. Keep Reading →