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
• GAY HOLOT
• TEL AVIV UNVEILS FIRST MEMORIAL TO GAY HOLOT VICTIMS
• GAY HOLOT MEMORIAL HONORS PA, SACRIFICE
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• SERI: GAY MEN AND LBIANS UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• GAY PEOPLE

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

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. Over the urse of the war about 5, 000-10, 000 homosexuals were killed ncentratn mps and an timated 100, 000 were arrted. 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 Berl, the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Unr Nazism ss across the street om the well-known Memorial to the Murred Jews of Europe. 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.

GAY HOLOT

The groups clud Pol, Soviets, Roma, polil prisoners, disabled people, crimals, Jehovah’s Wns and those seen as homosexuals. As wh the other groups, gay men (and to some extent lbians) were perceived as posg a threat to the “German people”. 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. Paragraph 175 began to be strictly enforced, homosexual activi were banned, and Hirschfeld’s stute was burned down.

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).

TEL AVIV UNVEILS FIRST MEMORIAL TO GAY HOLOT VICTIMS

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.

They were, acrdg to ttimoni by straight and gay survivors, treated worse than other groups (except Jews) bee they were nsired viant.

GAY HOLOT MEMORIAL HONORS PA, SACRIFICE

This was bee many Nazis believed that hard labour – work gravel ps, cement plants and brickworks – uld “turn” gay men straight. In Sachsenhsen, the majory of gay men were imprisoned “sissy blocks” and weren’t allowed to mix wh other prisoners. In the blocks, they were subject to overt persecutn, cludg verbal and physil homophobia, and surveillance om guards.

Durg one cint 1941, five gay men were rted to a bathroom and had hos shoved down their throats until they drowned. 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. Homosexualy was not crimalised Germany until 1967 East Germany and 1969 Wt Germany, and so a number of survivors end up back prison. While Jews, children, and polil prisoners uld apply for fancial and moral support om the new German ernments, homosexual men uld not.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

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. In Nazi Germany, a downward-potg pk triangle was sewn onto the shirts of gay men ncentratn mps—to intify and further humanize them. Homosexualy was technilly ma illegal Germany 1871, but was rarely enforced until the Nazi Party took power 1933.

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. Even after World War II, both East and Wt Germany upheld the untry’s anti-gay law, and many gays remaed rcerated until the early 1970s.

SERI: GAY MEN AND LBIANS UNR THE NAZI REGIME

The next year, post-war Germany’s first gay rights anizatn, Homosexuelle Aktn Wtberl (HAW), reclaimed the pk triangle as a symbol of liberatn. 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. Comg out of the 1920’s which was a more open time for homosexuals the Weimar Republic, that gave way to the btaly of the 1930’s and the Holot to e. Homosexualy and the Holot – BiblgraphyGays, the Holot, and the Pk Triangle“Crimals were marked wh green verted triangl, polil prisoners wh red, “asocials” (cludg Roma, nonnformists, vagrants, and other groups) wh black or— the se of Roma some mps—brown triangl.

I start out wh the homosexuals sce they were acrd a special tegory among the mat and `mered’ a separate, pk triangle. …Very ltle has been wrten about the tens of thoands of homosexuals who were the damnest of the damned, the outsts among the outsts the ncentratn are really only timat of figur. ’As Stefan Lorant observed 1935, the homosexuals `lived a dream’, hopg that the heyday of gays Germany of the 1920s would last forever.

GAY PEOPLE

Yet, the few survivors among them did not qualify for postwar rtutn as the Jews or the polils, bee as homosexuals they were outsi the law. After the prison sentenc most homosexuals were tomatilly shipped to ncentratn 1935, a new law legalized the `pulsory sterilizatn (often fact stratn) of homosexuals. Along wh epileptics, schizophrenics and other `generat’, they were beg homosexualy was still so wispread that 1942 the ath penalty was imposed for the army and the ncentratn mps, some pk triangl beme ncub of male Kapos or other men supervisory posns among the mat.

They were seldom lled other nam than arse-hol, shty queers or were allowed to talk only to each other, they had to sleep wh the lights on and wh hands above their people were not child molters; those were nsired profsnal crimals, green men wh pk triangl were given the harst jobs and were beg nstantly abed for their admted sexual preference, nsirable numbers of `normal’ men engaged homosexual acts wh impuny _ that was an emergency double standard was an addnal psychologil burn for the pk SS nsired great sport to tnt and torture the mp manr at Flossenburg often orred them flogged; as the victims were screamg, he `was pantg wh excement, and masturbated wildly his troers until he me, ’ unperturbed by the hundreds of onlookers. A sixty-year-old gay prit was beaten over his sexual ans by the SS and told: `You randy old rat-bag, you n piss wh your arse-hole the future. 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.

Himmler, who wanted to eradite homosexuals `root and branch’, had the ia to `cure’ them by mandatory viss to the mp brothel at Ravensbck women provid the servic wh ltle succs. LOC 82-12018, ISBN 0-313-23457-4Related ArticlHomosexualy and the Holot – BiblgraphyTriangl and Tribulatns: The Polics of Nazi SymbolsReturn to Wns.