One Bed for Two: The Story of an African American and a Dane Who Fought to Save Their Love During World War II in Fascist Italy

In 1939, two men met in Paris: Reed Peggram, a Black Harvard graduate, and Arne Hauptmann, a Danish artist. Their romance began on the eve of World War II and turned into a long struggle for survival. They endured denunciations, Italian concentration camps, and an escape through the snow-covered Apennines, only to ultimately lose each other forever. We tell the story of an “excessively intimate relationship” that Italian officials deemed a “sexual perversion.”

A Meeting in the Shadow of War

Reid Peggram was born in 1914 in Boston and was a brilliant student: he graduated from Harvard with bachelor’s and master’s degrees and was working on his dissertation in 19th-century French literature at the Sorbonne. Arne Hauptmann, born in 1916 in Copenhagen, was studying fine arts in Paris at the time. They met in May 1939, just a few months before the onset of the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century.

When the war began, Reed followed Arne to Copenhagen. They spent seven months in Denmark trying to plan their future, and in March 1940, they made the fateful decision to leave for Italy. They left Denmark just a couple of weeks before the Nazis occupied it. The couple had hoped to obtain a visa for Arne to go to the United States, but when those plans fell through, they remained in Florence. Despite the growing danger, Reed refused any help that would have meant being separated from Arne.

"Two Degenerates"

The couple’s life in Italy was under constant surveillance. After the United States entered the war, Reed became a citizen of an enemy nation, and Arne, as a subject of occupied Denmark, also aroused the authorities’ suspicion. They were moved to the small town of Montecatini Terme, where it was easier to keep an eye on them.

In February 1943, a report appeared in the Rome police records regarding “excessively intimate relations” between two men who were living in the same room with a single bed. An informant, whose name remains unknown, reported to the authorities that Peggram and Hauptman were “degenerates engaged in sexual perversion.”. The authorities decided to separate them: Reed was exiled to the commune of Bagnì di Lucca in Tuscany, and Arne was forbidden from visiting that place under any pretext. Both found themselves in a desperate financial and psychological state.

Camp Life: Lice, Hunger, and Margarine

The situation became critical after September 1943, when Italy surrendered to the Allies and the northern part of the country was occupied by German troops. Rida was interned in a camp in Bagnì di Lucca, while Arne was sent to the Colle di Compito concentration camp.

Conditions at the camps were appalling. The prisoners lived in tents that offered no protection from the cold or rain and were often flooded. The filthy toilets and showers were infested with lice and reeked of excrement. They were fed thin soup, which was barely enough to sustain their “miserable existence.” The prisoners waited for Red Cross parcels and sometimes ate margarine straight to stave off hunger. The days dragged on monotonously, interrupted only by roll calls on the parade ground, when guards counted the prisoners several times in the cold.

Reid later recalled that he had too much time to think about what lay ahead for them.

Escape Through the Apennines

In June 1944, following an Allied attack, the prisoners at Colle di Compito were transferred to the camp near Reed. The lovers were reunited after a year apart, but their joy was short-lived. Soon after, the camp came under bombardment. In the ensuing chaos, while the guards were trying to repel the attack, Reed found Arne amid the smoke and fire. They fled to the mountains with only the clothes on their backs, without even having time to gather their meager personal belongings.

For several months, they hid in the Apennines, swam across lakes, and made their way through snow-covered forests. To keep from starving, they ate chestnuts. During the day, they hid in the hills or with sympathetic partisans who gave them food and clothing, and at night they slept in barns and forests. They constantly relied on their intuition, trying to figure out which of the locals they could trust. On those cold nights, they dreamed of a future together after the war.

A Miracle and a Sad Ending

Rescue came in December 1944. Reed and Arne, who were on the verge of exhaustion, stumbled upon a patrol from the U.S. 92nd Infantry Division, which was composed entirely of African Americans. To Reed, it seemed like a mirage: to encounter American soldiers on the front lines in Italy—who, moreover, were Black.

However, the war did not bring them a happy ending. In August 1945, Arne returned to Denmark, while Reed was forced to leave for the United States. After everything he had been through, Reed suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. He returned to his homeland on a hospital ship. Even though they fought for their love for nearly five years in the heart of Nazi Europe, Reed and Arne never saw each other again.

You can learn more about this story in Professor Ethelene Whitmire’s book, *The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram: The Man Who Defied World War II for Love*.