Germany recalls overlooked LGBT victims of Nazi persecution

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Germany recalls overlooked LGBT victims of Nazi persecution

By FRANK JORDANS
January 27, 2023

BERLIN (AP) — Germany commemorated the victims of Nazi persecution on the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, placing a focus Friday on people who were incarcerated and killed because of their sexual orientations and gender identities.

Thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people were arrested and thrown into camps during Adolf Hitler’s 1933-1945 dictatorship, based on anti-homosexuality laws that preceded and outlasted the Nazi era.

The speaker of Germany’s parliament, Baerbel Bas, said the Nazis broadened Article 175 of the German penal code, which was introduced in 1872, to criminalize “kisses, touches, even glances” between people of the same sex, leading to accusations against tens of thousands of men.

“That was often enough to ruin their social existence,” Bas told lawmakers during the solemn ceremony held annually by the Bundestag to mark the liberation of Auschwitz.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/politics-germany-14bcd8e50b302637f6dce81a4e25c733

[Behind the Aegis]

1. It was YEARS after the first memorials before gays were acknowledged as victims.

At Dachau, there is a memorial within the grounds. It has all the triangles used, except the pink triangle, which was used to signify gay men. In Berlin, the gay memorial is an insult. A plain slab, no signage, with a video inside for 2minutes of gay people kissing. I was in tears when I left, not out of sorrow, but out of rage.

[Lunabell]

2. This in no way takes away from the Jewish community's holocaust.

But there were so many people whe were also victims. Communists, Roma people, people who were disabled, LGBTQIA folks and even Jehovah's witnesses. All victims along with a huge population of Jews.

We must never forget.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. But it isn't interesting, that much of Holocaust denial ONLY revolves around the Jews.

Yes, there were a number of different groups who were murdered by the Nazi machine, but it was the Jews were the main target and given that 2/3rds of my people were eliminated from Europe and almost 1/2 of my people erased from the ENTIRE world, there is a reason many memorials focus on the Jewish experience. The only group, at least from my studies, which would have likely been wiped from European soil were the Roma.

[Lunabell]

6. I think it's because their numbers were much larger.

And at the time, the LGBTQIA folks and Roma were pretty much universally despised.

Over 6 million Jewish people as compared to 500,000 Roma and 250,000 LGBTQIA. It's quite a difference, but of course should never be forgotten either.

[LostOne4Ever]

8. There is quite a bit of denial against Trans victims too

It is a common Gender Critical/ Trans Exclusionary Radical Fascist tactic to call anyone pointing out trans victims “antisemites” and say trans people were not victims at all.

Then said GC/TERFs will then say something extremely antisemitic thereafter.

[NullTuples]

10. I think perhaps it's only fairly recently that pop media began to talk about anyone else?

Only in the last decade have I seen much if any mention of how many of the practical public relations aspects of trying to eradicate Jews from the face of the planet were prototyped and honed using first disabled and autistic people, then criminals (including gay men as per German law at the time), and then when everything was ready and the general public had been stirred into a frenzy of antisemitism, Jews. It makes sense when one considers the numbers and the chance that someone would know an individual in the affected groups, which was relatively slight, and be willing to stand up for them. They were simply seen as disposable, or as they were termed at the time, "useless mouths" who contributed little to society and drained the economy. Terrifying when you consider that this indicates just how much careful preparation and consideration went into killing and harming so many other human beings.

[NullTuples]

3. When the camps were liberated, LGBT prisoners were moved to prisons instead of being set free.

Also, coverage from 2021: https://time.com/5953047/lgbtq-holocaust-stories/

[Behind the Aegis]

5. This is a piece of Holocaust history many don't know.

It is true that many gay men (no records about lesbians or trans individuals) were not freed but were made to "serve out" their remaining sentences. It was also years, as I stated above, before gay men were even acknowledged as victims, and even more years before their stories and memorials dedicated directly to them even came into being.

[NullTuples]

7. Lesbians were mostly treated as innocents thanks to patriarchy & trans women as gay men.

There are half-references, nothing solid as those doing the record-keeping made their own assumptions to protect their own word view. But those half references do seem to paint a vague picture after the Nazi's were defeated.

At that time in Germany and many surrounding countries, there were few if any laws against being a lesbian - none in Germany. Most of the lesbians in the camps had been imprisoned for being "socially or politically disruptive". It's almost like social bias was so strong they wouldn't openly admit women could be gay, too, so they had to label them differently.
As always, the holocaust museum is a good start: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/lesbians-under-the-nazi-regime
Also, an interesting paper here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0022009417690596

Trans people were well known and more understood pre-WWII (vs after WWII, up until 1965 & Dr Harry Benjamin) thanks to Berlin & Magnus Hirschfeld but as is the case today, conservative / authoritarian regimes destroyed anything and anyone that questioned their patriarchal authority and tried to force everyone into a simple, absolute, sex, gender & sexuality binary.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-forgotten-history-of-the-worlds-first-trans-clinic/

As far as I can find, trans people after the camps were liberated were treated as gay men or as women based on their anatomy. The rare mentions of lesbians & those who may have been trans men of course skirt the issue of their identity or sexuality completely, as that was deemed something for society to decide for them, especially in the post-war period that celebrated an assumed binary to reinforce the social hierarchy as men returned from war and needed their jobs back. But I digress...

[LostOne4Ever]

9. Gender Criticals/ TERFs use this to deny trans victims constantly

In fact, they the fact that trans women were treated as gay men to not only deny trans victims but accuse trans victims of trying to take the holocaust from everyone else.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCynical/comments/a5yo14/today_in_terfs_holocaust_denialism/

https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCynical/comments/yuwj81/whoops_german_terf_forgets_holocaust_denial_is_an/

https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCynical/comments/fwx4z8/denying_historical_consensus_on_the_holocaust_to/

https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCynical/comments/ie3r7h/the_nazis_didnt_kill_trans_people_because/

https://mobile.twitter.com/Potatopolitics/status/1072679394425081858?s=19

The Gender Cynical Reddit is a great at exposing all sorts of bigotry in the TERF/Gender Critical movement.