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?
• IN 'GREAT FREEDOM,' A MAN IS EED OM THE NAZIS, AND RE-IMPRISONED FOR BEG GAY
• GAY CONCENTRATN CAMPS: SILENCE = DEATH
• SERI: GAY MEN AND LBIANS UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

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

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. 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.

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. On October 1, 1944, the first of two sets of medil experiments volvg stratn are performed on homosexuals at the Buchenwald ncentratn mp, near Weimar, Germany.

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

Euthanasia was also performed regularly on Jews, Romani people and mentally ill MORE: The Pk Triangle: From Nazi Label to Symbol of Gay PriAmong the celt of Buchenwald’s overseers was the famo Ilsa Koch, wife of SS mandant Karl Koch and known as the “Wch of Buchenwald. 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.

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. 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.

IN 'GREAT FREEDOM,' A MAN IS EED OM THE NAZIS, AND RE-IMPRISONED FOR BEG GAY

When talkg about the cisn to make a vio, the artists explaed that as long as people are repulsed by gay people kissg somethg is missg, and that is the basis for vio wh the monument. New York self has a few LGBT monuments and landmarks such as the Stonewall Inn, the Gay Liberatn monument, and recently a newly missned monument to be stalled at Hudson River Park. Adolf Hler’s regime overturned all prev attempts Germany to crimalize same-sex acts, to challenge bigoted stereotyp about homosexualy, and to create tablishments where the men uld live and socialize openly.

Although the Third Reich was one of the most heartlsly homophobic regim morn history, practilly no first-hand acunts of Nazi vlence agast gay men existed eher Wt or East Germany before the early 1970s. ” That same year, the Soviet zone of occupatn (later the German Democratic Republic), Rudolf Klimmer appealed to the Organizatn of Those Persecuted by the Nazi Regime to offer regnn of gay men as victims of Natnal Socialist terror. Acrdg to Erik Jensen, gays and lbians “not only met silence the postwar perd regardg the Nazi persecutn of homosexuals, but they also faced the pernic myth that homosexuals themselv formed the backbone of the Nazi movement.

Calls for gay and lbian liberatn the palist mocraci the late 1960s and early ‘70s did fally create a more open atmosphere for the history of the opprsn of gays and lbians the Third Reich to emerge.

GAY CONCENTRATN CAMPS: SILENCE = DEATH

Two years later filmmaker Rosa von Prnheim released Nicht r Homosexuelle ist pervers, sonrn die Suatn, r er lebt (The Homosexual is not Perverse, But, Rather, the Suatn Which He Liv.

SERI: GAY MEN AND LBIANS UNR THE NAZI REGIME

) Prnheim (born Holger Radke 1942) had actually taken the name “Rosa” (German for Pk) to draw attentn to the Pk Triangle, the intifitn badge assigned by the SS to homosexuals the ncentratn mps. We sat down wh Sir John Dermot Turg, Alan Turg’s nephew and thor of a new book on Bletchley Park, to discs his uncle’s role pivotal role puter science and his persecutn for beg gay the 1950s.

The post was acpanied by a picture of a pk triangle -- the symbol officials Nazi Germany ed to intify and ostracize gay ncentratn mp prisoners -- and a quote drawn om the webse for The Pk Triangle of San Francis, an annual event rememberg those victimized unr Nazi le:. Between 1933 and 1945, an timated 100, 000 men were arrted for vlatg Nazi Germany's law agast homosexualy, and of the, approximately 50, 000 were sentenced to prison. The men arrted for beg gay were targeted unr a revised versn of a 19th century statute, Paragraph 175, which was expand to tegorize homosexualy as a crime of "cency.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

The Nazi versn of Paragraph 175 remaed on the books of the Feral Republic of Germany (Wt Germany) until the law was revised 1969 to crimalize homosexual relatns between men over the age of 21. On 22 March 2017, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her bet approved a bill that overturned nvictns for gay men which had rried out unr Paragraph 175 between 1949 and 1969 and also provid pensatn for survivg victims. The pk triangle symbol has sce evolved to an important remr for the gay, lbian, bisexual and transgenr muny of the ntug homophobia and humany agast them and other reprsed mori around the world.

While men wh pk triangl were given the harst jobs and were beg nstantly abed for their admted sexual preference, nsirable numbers of "normal" mat and guards engaged homosexual acts wh impuny - that was an emergency outlet. Eyewns tell of homosexuals beg tortured to ath by ticklg, by havg their tticl immersed alternately to hot and icy water, by havg a broomstick phed to their an. In fact, the wir ployment of labor the war dtry brought some relief to this type of prisoner too - for the labor shortage ma necsary to draw skills om the ranks of such people, although January of 1944 the homosexuals, wh very few exceptns, were still gog to the Dora murr mp, where many of them met their ath.