LGBTQ+ History Month: gay victims and survivors of the Holot are often fotten – we need to tell their stori

Contents:

• THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
• WERE GAY CONCENTRATN CAMP PRISONERS 'PUT BACK PRISON' AFTER WORLD WAR II?
• GAY RIGHTS
• ALLEGED GAY 'CONCENTRATN CAMPS' IN CHECHNYA SPARK GLOBAL OUTRAGE
• MORE THAN 100 GAY MEN 'SENT TO PRISON MPS' CHECHNYA

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

Due to limed rearch fundg, the high ath rate of gay men the mps, and the stigma attached to homosexualy, the victims are often fotten by the world. This clud more than 100 gay and lbian bars and f, songs and films, and Magn Hirschfeld’s Instut für Sexualwissenschaft (the Instute for Sexual Science), which ntaed thoands of books and journals on sexualy and genr.

Dpe Paragraph 175, which crimalised male homosexualy the German crimal , LGBTQ+ people tend to be observed and monored rather than persecuted.

Some Nazis believed that the majory of, if not all, homosexuals were Jewish bee many of the proment advot of gay rights and equaly were (cludg Hirschfeld as well as progrsive psychiatrists, physicians, lawyers and jurists). More than 100, 000 men intified as homosexual were arrted and many sent to ncentratn mps at Buchenwald, Dach, Sachsenhsen, Mthsen and Achwz, where between 5, 000 and 15, 000 of them died.

WERE GAY CONCENTRATN CAMP PRISONERS 'PUT BACK PRISON' AFTER WORLD WAR II?

Ttimony om Hez Heger, a gay Atrian ncentratn mp survivor (whose real name was Josef Kohout), provis sights to homosexual experienc the mps. Heger relled that gay men had to sleep wh their hands above their blankets, and if they didn’t they were taken outsi and had buckets of water thrown at them.

GAY RIGHTS

Homosexualy was not crimalised Germany until 1967 East Germany and 1969 Wt Germany, and so a number of survivors end up back prison.

Though the opprsn of gay men durg the Holot may have fad om public memory, hate crim agast LGBTQ+ people around the world are still rife. 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.

“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 ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, timated 65 percent of gay men ncentratn mps died between 1933 and 1945. The next year, post-war Germany’s first gay rights anizatn, Homosexuelle Aktn Wtberl (HAW), reclaimed the pk triangle as a symbol of liberatn.

ALLEGED GAY 'CONCENTRATN CAMPS' IN CHECHNYA SPARK GLOBAL OUTRAGE

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. In the Fall of 1933, the first transport of homosexuals arrived at Fuhlsbüttel ncentratn mp Hamburg, Germany, a small Nazi mp that has an timated 500 victims.

Some Amerin and Brish lawyers even mand that homosexuals nvicted unr Article 175 serve out their full sentenc after beg released om ncentratn mps and many were forced to do so.

MORE THAN 100 GAY MEN 'SENT TO PRISON MPS' CHECHNYA

The Homomonument Amsterdam is, like many of the monuments, shaped like a large pk triangle wh the pots leadg to other plac to vis such as the Anne Frank hoe.