Everything listed under: Holocaust

  • The Last (?) of the Pink Triangles: Gay Holocoust Survivor speaks

    Germany at the beginning of the 20th Century was a growing queer metropolis. Bars, theatres, organizations, libraries, health services --- it was an amazing time, by all accounts. The Night of the Long Knives signalled that the end of this culture was coming. Hitler's plan was to get rid of 'homosexuals' along with Jews (and many other groups). And he systematically went about doing so. 
     
    Meet Rudolph Brazda. He might be the last "pink triangle" survivor alive, and he's cute as a button. (The Nazis gave Jews the yellow star to wear, gay men were given the pink triangle). He retells the story of what happened to him when he got to the concentration camp, how he got out, and a bit about his life after. Fascinating.
     
    After the Allies freed the camp survivors, many of the gay men were re-arrested and thrown in jail by the Allied-supported new government of Germany --- Paragraph 175 was still the law making being gay a crime. Paragraph 175 wasn't fully repealed until 1994. Rudolph was fortunate to not be re-jailed, and he talks of building a new life afterwards. I wish we had more first hand accounts of gay camp survivors.

     

    Fri, October 22, 2010 (No comments)

  • NY Assemblyman doesn't want gays on the Holocaust Memorial

     

    From an artcile in the NY POST:

    Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind doesn't want gays, political prisoners, gypsies, the handicapped — or any other group of people persecuted and killed by the hundreds of thousands during the Holocaust — to be recognized at the city-owned Holocaust Memorial Park in Sheepshead Bay. Even though 5 million non-Jews were killed by the Nazis alongside the 6 million Jews, Hikind says that "to include these other groups diminishes their memory." Hikind's mother, who survived the prison camp at Auschwitz, was with him when he made his announcement. "These people are not in the same category as Jewish people with regards to the Holocaust," he said. "It is so vastly different. You cannot compare political prisoners with Jewish victims."

    Shame on him. For more information about the persecution of queers by the Nazi's during the Holocaust, check this out.

    Wed, June 10, 2009 (No comments)