Nazis' heinous crimes against thousands of queer people must never, ever be forgotten

[left-of-center2012]

Each year on 27 January, the day that the surviving prisoners in Auschwitz were freed, the world comes together to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. Each year, we remember the victims who tragically lost their lives, but we also remember the survivors whose lives were permanently scarred by the horrors they faced.

Between 1933 and 1945, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested for homosexuality in Nazi Germany. Some 50,000 were sentenced for their “crimes” and ... sent to concentration camps. Sociologist Rüdiger Lautmann has estimated that up to 60 per cent of gay men incarcerated in concentration camps died during their imprisonment.

Unfortunately, when the allies liberated the concentration camps, many of the gay people who were imprisoned were not set free. Instead they were transferred to prisons, then under the control of the Allied forces. Same-sex sexual activity between men remained illegal in East and West Germany until 1968 and 1969 respectively.

In 1972, the first autobiography of a gay concentration camp survivor was published. The Men with the Pink Triangle told the story of Josef Kohout and shone a light on the largely untold treatment of queer people in the Holocaust.

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2022/01/27/holocaust-memorial-day-lgbt-nazi-concentration-camps/

The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and- Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/391661.The_Men_with_the_Pink_Triangle

[JT45242]

1. On this day all of the victims -- gays, gypsies (magyars), poles, disabled should all be remembered

The long list of targeted groups that the Nazis tortured, worked to death, and killed is sad commentary on the human condition.

Many of the same groups are still hated, targeted, and attacked by American hate groups today.

I also take today to mourn the millions that Stalin killed. As well as the millionsof Koreans, Chinese, etc. who were killed in the name of Imperialist Japan for the crime of not being Japanese.

All those deaths -- such a tragic waste of lives all around the globe.

We should all remember the victims of hatred.

[kimbutgar]

2. I saw this documentary about how Berlin had a thriving gay scene

And Marlena Dietrich used to perform there. It’s sad that what we are experiencing now with the hate in the US by the maga cult has parallels to Germany in the late 1920’s.

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

3. Never forget...

any of it!

[Behind the Aegis]

4. There are a few memorials which pay tribute to the gay people murdered.

A few of those memorials are nice, others are quite lacking, like the one in Berlin. Just last year, "stumbling stones" were added throughout German cities with the names of gay people murdered. This was another acknowledgement of the brutality and murderousness of the Nazi regime.

[Demovictory9]

5. K&R