Peter Melzer

Peter Melzer (AKA "Peter Herman") (b. April 16, 1940, Brussels, Belgium - d. Feb. 9th 2024 New York, USA) was a self-confessed BoyLover (attracted to boys up to 16 years old), a respected teacher, holocaust survivor, and administrator/editor/writer at North American Man/Boy Love Association or NAMBLA (the website and the Nambla Bulletin). Sometimes described as "the head" or "leader" of NAMBLA, Peter had a passion for education and spoke German, French and English fluently, teaching for 31 years (1968-1992) as a Physics teacher at New York's prestigious Bronx High School of Science. For much of his adult life, he eschewed shame and lived openly as a celibate boylover, being "out" to friends and work colleagues who he felt would be sympathetic / reasonable. While he had never been suspected of or charged for any crimes relating to sexual activity with young people, Melzer famously fought a lengthy legal battle to retain his teaching role after he came to national attention due to a three-part television report on NAMBLA by WNBC's John Miller. The report, aired on March 2, 3 and 5th of 1992, and viewed by many hundreds of thousands of households each night, prominently displayed Melzer on camera at public meetings of NAMBLA's New York chapter, identified him as a pedophile and a leader of NAMBLA and a teacher at Bronx Science. This was partially successful: an appellate court ruled that he could not be fired simply on the basic of his paedophilic identity, nor what he chose to do lawfully in his time outside of his teaching duties. He could, however, be moved out of the classroom. Peter therefore kept (and increased) his salary for another 10 years, earning a good pension, but having to work outside the classroom. Although he lost the job he loved and considered this a failure, he was – ironically – paid substantial sums to do virtually nothing teaching related, and left with ample time for BL / NAMBLA activism. Provocatively, one could argue that he was effectively paid to do NAMBLA work...

Surviving Nazism: Peter Melzer's Childhood

Born in Brussels on 16 April 1940, Peter's first language was French, and he would be known as “Pierre” until his high school years in the United States. His mother, Regina (“Gina”) Jaeger, was born in Vienna and had a good job there. But with the rise of the Nazis and Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938, it was wise for Jewish families, including the Melzers, to leave the country. So Gina and her husband Herman Melzer (whose name was presumably the inspiration for Peter's later pen name) went to Belgium, where work was scarce for refugees. A month after Peter's birth, the German occupation of Belgium began, and the lives of any Jews were put in jeopardy there as well. During Peter's infancy, his father was arrested by the Nazis and, after being taken to France and made to undertake forced labor there, he was eventually sent to Auschwitz death camp and died there.

In 1942, two-year-old Peter had whooping cough. Gina, afraid her son's illness would attract too much attention, had him hospitalised, partly to avoid detection as part of a Jewish family. Peter was then separated from her, starting a new life in Anderlecht in the care of a stern Belgian woman paid to harbor Jews, including a couple of other boys. He stayed there for two and a half years until the Allied forces liberated Belgium, when his mother was at last able to retrieve him.

Young “Pierre” - now an only child - and Gina, would remain in Belgium until 1951 when, through the assistance of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) in New York City, they were able to emigrate to America. Their ship docked in Hoboken, New Jersey on 31 July. As a clever, artistic boy, also with an aptitude for science, “Pierre” reinvented himself as Peter, an American, able to fit in and do well enough at school to go to City College of New York (part of CUNY, the City University of New York) and graduate with a degree in physics.

Later Life and Death

Peter led an extremely active social life, enjoying winter skiing holidays well into his 70s, and kayaking on the Hudson River in New York. In December 2023, Peter had been diagnosed with an advanced stage of pancreatic cancer, and died at his home in New York on the 9th of February, at age 83. Friends were there at the time.

In tributes / obituaries to him, Peter is remembered as a dedicated, stalwart figure who believed passionately in NAMBLA's mission to bring about legal reform to age of consent and statutory rape laws. Such laws had, during his lifetime, criminalized mutually willing (i.e. consensual) intimacy involving a proscribed age gap, regardless of the views, feelings and desires of those involved.

See also

• Chickenhawk - Documentary from 1994 on NAMBLA.
• List of MAP-related magazines