Nazi Symbol for Gays, Now Reclaimed, Towers Over San Francis

Contents:

• THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• THE GAY STRAIGHT-TALKER
• NAZI SYMBOL FOR GAYS, NOW RECLAIMED, TOWERS OVER SAN FRANCIS
• GAY HISTORY: THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI

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

In Nazi Germany, a downward-potg pk triangle was sewn onto the shirts of gay men ncentratn mps—to intify and further humanize them. 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.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

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. 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.

THE GAY STRAIGHT-TALKER

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.

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

Jt as the Nazis forced Jewish people to wear a yellow Star of David, they forced people they labeled as gay to wear verted pk triangl (or ‘die Rosa-Wkel’). 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.

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

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. 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.