History and disappearance of pink triangle in lgbtq community

The Prisoners with the Pink Triangle

Contents

The stop by to the former concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau begins in a tunnel with bare concrete walls. It is the entrance from the newly built visitor centre to the grounds of the memorial. A voice is heard, it names people. These are the names of the people who were murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

You can also listen to this Deuthsclandfunk podcast (in German) by Sarah Tekath: Vergessene Stimmen – Die queeren Opfer des Holocaust (Forgotten Voices – The queer victims of the Holocaust)

Jews, Sinti and Roma, people with disabilities, political dissidents and criminals fell victim to racial and political fanaticism under National Socialism. Same-sex attracted men were also counted among the ‘criminals’ because male homosexuality was punishable at the second. The basis for this was paragraph 175 of the German Reich’s penal code, which was introduced in 1871 and made ‘unnatural indecency’ a criminal offence. The National Socialists regarded male homosexuality as a threat to the state and tightened the law in 1935. From then on, any sexual act between two men could be prosecuted, even ‘lewd’ looks.

Karl Gorath was

In recent years the pink triangle has been widely adopted by individuals and gay organizations around the world as a symbol of gay visibility and gay resistance. Used by the Nazis to recognize homosexual prisoners in German concentration camps, it is a powerful reminder of a grim episode in the history of lgbtq+ oppression. The first account in English of the situation of homosexuals in Nazi Germany appeared origninally in The Body Politic as part of a series by James Steakley on the development of an early German lgbtq+ emancipation movement. The uncovering of the existence -- and abrupt disappearance -- of this first wave of homosexual organization has had a lasting impact on the contemporary movement's sense of its place in history. Perhaps no other TBP article has so jolted the imagination and political consciousness of gay activists and other readers. It is reprinted in full below.  
"After roll call on the evening of June 20, 1942, an order was suddenly given: 'All prisoners with the pink triangle will remain standing at attention!' We stood on the desolate, broad square, and from somewhere a heated summer breeze carried the sweet fragrance of resin and wo

Pink Triangle Legacies: Coming Out in the Shadow of the Holocaust 9781501765506

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction: “Beaten to Death, Silenced to Death”
1. “They Are Enemies of the State!”: The Fate of LGBTQ+ People in Nazi Germany
2. “For Homosexuals, the Third Reich Hasn’t Ended Yet”: Paragraph 175 and the Nazi Past in West Germany
3. “The Only Acceptable Same-sex attracted Liberation Logo”: The Reclamation of the Pink Triangle in West Germany
4. “It’s a Scar, but in Your Heart”: The Pink Triangle in American Lgbtq+ Activism
5. “Remembrances of Things Once Hidden”: Piecing Together the Pink Triangle Past on Stage and on Page
6. “We Died There, Too”: Commemoration and the Construction of a Transatlantic Gay Identity
Epilogue: “Remembering Must Also Have Consequences”
Appendix A: Timeline of Key Events
Appendix B: Memorials to Queer Victims of the Nazi Regime
Appendix C: Memorials with Pink Triangle for LGBTQ Victims of Violence
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

PINK TRIANGLE LEGACIES

PINK TRIANGLE LEGACIES COMING O U T I N T H E S H A D OW O F T H E H O LO C AUST

W. Jake Newsome

CORNELL UNIVERSITY Compress Ithaca and London

Copyright ©

Pink Triangles: Adopted Memories of Gay Persecution in Nazi Europe

For a long period, the persecution of lgbtq+ men and women during the Second World War went unrecognised. Meanwhile, the pink triangle became a universal symbol of the havoc caused by homophobia. At Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen, an exhibition highlights the precarious situation of gays and lesbians in Nazi Germany and the occupied countries of France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Since 2007, in Verviers, Belgium, a plaque has commemorated the gay and womxn loving womxn victims of the Nazi regime. More than 10,000 of them were deported; 6,000 men and women never returned. Twenty years prior, the Homomonument was erected in Amsterdam, commemorating those same victims. The pink triangle – a symbol used by the Nazis in some concentration camps to identify homosexuals – figures prominently in both memorials. No Belgian or Dutch, however, was pinned a pink triangle during the Nazi era.

Between optimism and oppression

The exhibition Homosexuals and Lesbians in Nazi Europe, on view until December 2023 at Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen, demonstrates that those wanting to understand pink triangles must look back to the 1920s. The shock
history and disappearance of pink triangle in lgbtq community

Weimar 2.0: Reflections between the Rainbow and the “pink triangle”

Michaela Dudley (*1961) is an author, journalist, lawyer (Juris Dr., US), queer feminist and sharp-tongued cabaret painter. Her essay was published in the catalog for the exhibition TO BE SEEN. queer lives 1900–1950.

“Dehumanization begins with a word, but so does emancipation”1 – I have exhorted people with these words for years now, in interviews, cabaret performances, newspaper columns, lectures, and workshops. The oft-cited slogan from my pen evokes images of a phoenix-like arising. An arising from the ashes, to be sure. Daring, but intentional. For me, this motto is not merely the intoning of a lamentation, but also, as it were, a call for liberation. The quote functions as a maxim for my recent volume of essays on racism2, but it is also suitable as an appeal against other forms of exclusion and elimination. These clearly include the systematic, centuries-long persecution of the LGBTIQ+ community.

 

TO BE SEEN. gender non-conforming lives 1900–1950 is dedicated to this topic, with a focus on the multifaceted and fateful German involvement. The exhibition at the Munich Documentation Ce