Beate Verena Schmittke’s book Von Nun an Ging’s: Die Geburt eines Schmetterlings (From Now On: The Birth of a Butterfly) is both a confession and a chronicle of transformation, written with raw honesty and a deep awareness of time, loss, and rebirth. It is the story of a person who, in early adolescence, discovered a truth too heavy for the world to carry and too dangerous to be spoken aloud. Born in February 1952 as Bruno Schmittke, Beate grew up in a society that had no words for what she felt inside, where being different meant hiding in plain sight. Her book follows a journey that begins with silence and ends with self-acceptance, a metamorphosis that took nearly half a century to complete.
As a child, Beate already sensed the woman she would one day become. She recalls being eleven years old and seeing the Vienna Boys’ Choir on television, performing in girls’ roles. In that moment, something inside her stirred, a longing to wear one of those dresses, a deep certainty that she belonged on the other side of the mirror. But the 1960s were not a time for such revelations. She learned to bury her feelings, to play the part that was expected of her, to become a man who worked, married, and raised children. The girl inside remained hidden, dressed only in dreams and borrowed clothes.
