BERLIN — Gad Beck, a pioneering gay rights activist and educator in a severely anti-homosexual, repressive post-World War II German culture, has died, just six days before his 89th birthday.

Beck was believed to be the last known gay Jewish survivor of the Holocaust.

Beck who was famous for his humorous style of speaking once told a German radio host, “The Americans in New York called me a great hero. I said no… I’m really a little hero.”