Rudolf Brazda: Last known survivor of the 'Pk Triangle' gay mat of Nazi ncentratn mps | The Inpennt | The Inpennt

Contents:

• THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
• NAZI SYMBOL FOR GAYS, NOW RECLAIMED, TOWERS OVER SAN FRANCIS
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• RUDOLF BRAZDA: LAST KNOWN SURVIVOR OF THE 'PK TRIANGLE' GAY MAT OF NAZI NCENTRATN MPS

THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI

As part of their missn to racially and culturally “purify” Germany, the Nazis arrted thoands of LGBT dividuals, mostly gay men, whom they viewed as Uned Stat Holot Memorial Mm timat 100, 000 gay men were arrted and between 5, 000 and 15, 000 were placed ncentratn mps.

)Corbis/Getty ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, the mps, gay men were treated pecially harshly, by guards and fellow prisoners alike. “There was no solidary for the homosexual prisoners; they belonged to the lowt ste, ” Pierre Seel, a gay Holot survivor, wrote his memoir I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi timated 65 percent of gay men ncentratn mps died between 1933 and 1945. Horac Villalobos/Corbis/Getty ImagMemorial plaqu for homosexuals, Jehovah's Wns and Wehrmacht serters are placed where once stood one of the molished barracks Buchenwald ncentratn mp near Weimar, Germany.

In 1986, six New York Cy activists created a poster wh the words SILENCE = DEATH and a bright pk upward-facg triangle, meant to ll attentn to the AIDs crisis that was cimatg populatns of gay men across the untry. And the fact that was almost impossible to nvict anyone unls he nfsed to such a crime urt meant that police jt kept a watchful eye on gay bars and events, and Germany end up beg home to a vibrant gay muny. Historian Robert Beachy argu that, ironilly, the law spurred scientific tert the study of sexual preferenc, and that rearch tend to enurage a more scientific unrstandg of human sexualy, which further allowed the ia of gay rights to flourish.

NAZI SYMBOL FOR GAYS, NOW RECLAIMED, TOWERS OVER SAN FRANCIS

Hler saw gay men as a threat to his mpaign to purify Germany, pecially bee their partnerships uld not bear children who would grow the Aryan race he wanted to cultivate. Durg that perd, gay-iendly bars and clubs started beg shut down, thori burned the books at a major rearch stutn voted to the study of sexualy, and gay aternal anizatns were shuttered.

The efforts only creased after the Night of the Long Kniv, the 1934 purge of Nazi lears who were acced of tryg to overthrow Hler; they clud Storm Troopers lear Ernst Röhm, whom the SS murred, later cg his homosexualy as jtifitn for his murr. Some were ed as guea pigs var medil experiments to fd a cure for typh fever and a cure for homosexualy, the latter of which led the SS to ject them wh ttosterone to see if would make them straight.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

As one of the USHMM’s curators has poted out, even as the Allied powers refully worked to scb Nazism om Germany, they left that part alone — perhaps bee they had anti-gay and anti-sodomy laws of their own. As the gay liberatn movement grew Ameri the ’70s and the ’80s, so did awarens of the persecutn of gays durg the Holot, as books and data about perd started beg published. Data on the victims started to be ced 1977, after a statistil analysis by soclogist Rudiger Ltmann of Bremen Universy claimed that as many as 60% of the gay men sent ncentratn mps may have have died.

The first reference to pk triangl TIME also appeared that year, a story about gay-rights activists Miami who attached the symbols to their cloth as a show of solidary while prottg a vote to repeal a law protectg gay people om hog discrimatn. In 1979, Mart Sherman’s play Bent, spired by Heger’s memoir, opened on Broadway; the play, one of the characters tras his pk triangle for a yellow star, “which giv him preferential treatment over the homosexuals, ” as TIME’s review put .

The activists who formed the anizatn ACT-UP to raise awarens about this public health crisis cid to e the pk triangle as a symbol of their mpaign and allud to s history when they clared, their manifto, that “silence about the opprsn and annihilatn of gay people, then and now, mt be broken as a matter of our survival. Earlier this year, Fkelste said that the op-ed was a “galvanizg moment, ” at a time when there was “public discsn of puttg gay men to ncentratn mps to keep the epimic om spreadg. ” Three months later, the German parliament voted unanimoly to pardon gay men nvicted of homosexualy durg World War II, awardg €3, 000 to the 5, 000 men still livg, and €1, 500 for each year they were imprisoned.

RUDOLF BRAZDA: LAST KNOWN SURVIVOR OF THE 'PK TRIANGLE' GAY MAT OF NAZI NCENTRATN MPS

Inially ed as a badge of shame for "gay men" the Nazi Germany of the 1930s and 40s, [1][2] was revived the 70s and 80s as a symbol of prott agast homophobia and ever sce reclaimed as a posive symbol of self-inty and pri by the larger LGBTQIA+ muny.

Before the e of the pk triangle, gay male prisoners Nazi ncentratn mps were marked by a variety of symbols: a green triangle to intify gay crimals; a red triangle for gay polil prisoners; the number "175" was ed reference to Paragraph 175 of the German penal , which crimalized homosexual activy; or the letter "A", which stood for Arschficker and lerally translat as "arse fucker".