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Gays Observe Holocaust Memorial Day
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Steeplerot
Lifer
Remembering what the nazis did to anyone a "commie" or gay or jew is important lest we start back on the same road to
dictatorship. It's always starts with the singling out of the opposition as "elites" and not part of the masses"
Then isolation and dehumanization justifys the genocide to follow.
The gays of the 3rd reich were treated no diffrent then the "judenrat"
the pink triangle can be seen on this old picture of a poster so a nazi can tell whos-whos of elitest undesirables.
dictatorship. It's always starts with the singling out of the opposition as "elites" and not part of the masses"
Then isolation and dehumanization justifys the genocide to follow.
The gays of the 3rd reich were treated no diffrent then the "judenrat"
the pink triangle can be seen on this old picture of a poster so a nazi can tell whos-whos of elitest undesirables.
I love how uncomfortable this topic is making some people...they can't even respond, all they can do is pick random fights with other posters.
The point is that gay people, just like every other group killed in the Holocaust, were singled out and murdered based on some superficial thing about them that shouldn't matter in any half decent society.
The point is that gay people, just like every other group killed in the Holocaust, were singled out and murdered based on some superficial thing about them that shouldn't matter in any half decent society.
Daily life for homosexuals in Nazi concentration camp
Heinz Heger
From The men with the Pink Triangles by Heinz Heger, published by Alyson Publications 1980.
pgs 34-37
"... Our block was only occupied by homosexuals, with about 250 men in each wing. We could only sleep in our night-shirts, and had to keep our hands outside the blankets, for: 'You queer arse-holes aren't going to start wanking here!'
"The windows of had a centimetre of ice on them. Anyone found with his underclothes on in bed, or his hand under his blanket -- there were checks almost every night -- was taken outside and had serveral bowls of water poured over him before being left standing outside for a good hour. Only a few people survived this treatment. The least result was bronchitis, and it was rare for any gay person taken into the sick-bay to come out alive. We who wore the pink triangle were prioritised for medical experiments, and these generally ended in death. For my part, therefore, I took every care I could not to offend against the regulations.
"Our block senior and his aides were
"We were also forbidden to approach nearer than five metres of the other blocks. Anyone caught doing so was whipped on the 'horse', and was sure of at least 15 to 20 strokes. Other categories of prisoner were similarly forbidden to enter our block. We were to remain isolated as the damnedest of the damned, the camp's 'shitty queers', condemned to liquidation and helpless prey to all torments inflicted by the SS and Capos.
"The day regularly began at 6a.m., or 5 a.m. in the summer, and in just half an hour we had to be washed, dressed and have our beds made up in military style. If you still had time, you could have breakfast, which meant a hurried slurping down the thin flour soup, hot or luke-warm, and eating your piece of bread. Then we had to form up in eights on the parade-ground for morning roll-call. Work followed, in winter from 7.30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and in summer from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., with a half hour break at the workplace. After work, straight back to camp and immediate parade for evening roll-call.
"Each block marched in formation to the parade-ground and had its permanent position there. The morning parade was not so drawn-out as the much feared evening roll-call, for only the block numbers were counted, which took about an hour, and then the command was given for work detachments to form up.
"At every parade, those that had just died had to be present, i.e. they were laid out at the end of each block and counted as well. Only after the parade, and having been tallied by the report officer, were they taken to the mortuary and subsequently burned.
"Disabled prisoners also had to be present for parade. Time and again we helped or carried comrades to the parade-ground who had been beaten by the SS only hours before. Or we had to bring along fellow-prisoners who were half-frozen or feverish, so as to have our numbers complete. Any man missing from our block meant many blows and thus many deaths.
"We new arrivals were now assigned to our work, which was to keep the area around the block clean. That, at least, was what we were told by the NCO in charge. In reality, the purpose was to break the very last spark of independent spirit that might possibly remain in the new prisoners, by senseless yet heavy labour, and to destroy the little human dignity that we still retained. This work continued til a new batch of pink-triangle prisoners were delivered to our block and we were replaced.
"Our work, then, was as follows. In the morning we had to cart the snow outside our block from the left side of the road to the right side. In the afternoon we had to cart the same snow back from the right side to the left. We didn't have barrows and shovels to perform this work either, that would have been far too simple for us 'queers'. No, our SS masters had thought up something much better.
"We had to put our coats with the buttoned side backward, and take the snow away in the container this provided We had to shovel up the snow with our hands -- our bare hands, as we didn't have any gloves. We worked in teams of two. Twenty turns at shovelling up the snow with our hands, then twenty turns at carrying it away. And so, right throught the evening, and all at the double!
"This mental and bodily torment lasted six days, until at last new pink-triangle prisoners were delivered to our block and took over for us. Our hands were cracked all over and half frozen off, and we had become dumb and indifferent slaves of the SS.
"I learned from prisoners who had already been in our block a good while that in summer similar work was done with earth and sand. "Above the gate of the prison camp, however, the 'meaningful' Nazi slogan was written in big capitals: 'Freedom through work!'"
Transcribed from We were marked with a big `A' a video-film by Joseph Weishaupt and Elke Jeanron, distributed by the United State Holocaust Memorial Museum
"Half a year I was kept bent over... My hands were tied to my ankles. When they brought the food, the bowl was on the floor; they poured it from above and it was spilled all over. I had to lick it up with my tongue. We couldn't go out, so your pants were soiled."
Heinz Heger
From The men with the Pink Triangles by Heinz Heger, published by Alyson Publications 1980.
pgs 34-37
"... Our block was only occupied by homosexuals, with about 250 men in each wing. We could only sleep in our night-shirts, and had to keep our hands outside the blankets, for: 'You queer arse-holes aren't going to start wanking here!'
"The windows of had a centimetre of ice on them. Anyone found with his underclothes on in bed, or his hand under his blanket -- there were checks almost every night -- was taken outside and had serveral bowls of water poured over him before being left standing outside for a good hour. Only a few people survived this treatment. The least result was bronchitis, and it was rare for any gay person taken into the sick-bay to come out alive. We who wore the pink triangle were prioritised for medical experiments, and these generally ended in death. For my part, therefore, I took every care I could not to offend against the regulations.
"Our block senior and his aides were
"We were also forbidden to approach nearer than five metres of the other blocks. Anyone caught doing so was whipped on the 'horse', and was sure of at least 15 to 20 strokes. Other categories of prisoner were similarly forbidden to enter our block. We were to remain isolated as the damnedest of the damned, the camp's 'shitty queers', condemned to liquidation and helpless prey to all torments inflicted by the SS and Capos.
"The day regularly began at 6a.m., or 5 a.m. in the summer, and in just half an hour we had to be washed, dressed and have our beds made up in military style. If you still had time, you could have breakfast, which meant a hurried slurping down the thin flour soup, hot or luke-warm, and eating your piece of bread. Then we had to form up in eights on the parade-ground for morning roll-call. Work followed, in winter from 7.30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and in summer from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., with a half hour break at the workplace. After work, straight back to camp and immediate parade for evening roll-call.
"Each block marched in formation to the parade-ground and had its permanent position there. The morning parade was not so drawn-out as the much feared evening roll-call, for only the block numbers were counted, which took about an hour, and then the command was given for work detachments to form up.
"At every parade, those that had just died had to be present, i.e. they were laid out at the end of each block and counted as well. Only after the parade, and having been tallied by the report officer, were they taken to the mortuary and subsequently burned.
"Disabled prisoners also had to be present for parade. Time and again we helped or carried comrades to the parade-ground who had been beaten by the SS only hours before. Or we had to bring along fellow-prisoners who were half-frozen or feverish, so as to have our numbers complete. Any man missing from our block meant many blows and thus many deaths.
"We new arrivals were now assigned to our work, which was to keep the area around the block clean. That, at least, was what we were told by the NCO in charge. In reality, the purpose was to break the very last spark of independent spirit that might possibly remain in the new prisoners, by senseless yet heavy labour, and to destroy the little human dignity that we still retained. This work continued til a new batch of pink-triangle prisoners were delivered to our block and we were replaced.
"Our work, then, was as follows. In the morning we had to cart the snow outside our block from the left side of the road to the right side. In the afternoon we had to cart the same snow back from the right side to the left. We didn't have barrows and shovels to perform this work either, that would have been far too simple for us 'queers'. No, our SS masters had thought up something much better.
"We had to put our coats with the buttoned side backward, and take the snow away in the container this provided We had to shovel up the snow with our hands -- our bare hands, as we didn't have any gloves. We worked in teams of two. Twenty turns at shovelling up the snow with our hands, then twenty turns at carrying it away. And so, right throught the evening, and all at the double!
"This mental and bodily torment lasted six days, until at last new pink-triangle prisoners were delivered to our block and took over for us. Our hands were cracked all over and half frozen off, and we had become dumb and indifferent slaves of the SS.
"I learned from prisoners who had already been in our block a good while that in summer similar work was done with earth and sand. "Above the gate of the prison camp, however, the 'meaningful' Nazi slogan was written in big capitals: 'Freedom through work!'"
Transcribed from We were marked with a big `A' a video-film by Joseph Weishaupt and Elke Jeanron, distributed by the United State Holocaust Memorial Museum
"Half a year I was kept bent over... My hands were tied to my ankles. When they brought the food, the bowl was on the floor; they poured it from above and it was spilled all over. I had to lick it up with my tongue. We couldn't go out, so your pants were soiled."
From I, Pierre Seel: Deported Homosexual by Pierre Seel, translated from French by Joachim Neugroschel, published by Basic Books, a division of Harpers Collins, 1995
pgs 42-44
"One day the loudspeakers ordered us to report immediately to the roll-call site. Shouts and yells urged us to be there without delay. Surrounded by SS men, we had to form a square and stand at attention, as we did for morning roll call. The commandant appeared with his entire general staff. I assumed he was going to bludgeon us once again with his blind faith in the Reich, together with a list of orders, insults and threats -- emulating the infamous outpourings of his master, Adolph Hitler. But the actual ordeal was far worse: an execution. Two SS men brought a young man to the center of the square. Horrified, I recognized Jo, my loving friend, who was only 18 years old. I hadn't previously spotted him in the camp. Had he arrived before or after me? We hadn't seen each other during the days before I was summoned by the Gestapo.
"Now I froze in terror. I prayed that he would escape their lists, their roundups, their humiliations. And here he was, before my powerless eyes, which filled with tears. Unlike me, he had not carried dangerous letters, torn down posters, or signed any statements. What had happened? What had the monsters accused him of? Because of my anguish I have completely forgotten the wording of the death sentence.
"The loudspeakers broadcast some noisy classical music while the SS stripped him naked and shoved a tin pale over his head. Next, they sicced their ferocious German shephards on him: the guard dogs first bit into his groin and thighs, then devoured him right in front of us. His shrieks of pain were distorted and amplified by the pain in which his head was trapped. My rigid body reeled, my eyes gaped at so much horror, tears poured down my cheeks, I fervently prayed that he would black out quickly.
"Since then I sometimes wake up howling in the middle of the night. For fifty years now that scene has kept ceaselessly passing and repassing through my mind. I will never forget the barbaric murder of my love -- before my eyes, before our eyes, for their were hundreds of witnesses..."
pgs 42-44
"One day the loudspeakers ordered us to report immediately to the roll-call site. Shouts and yells urged us to be there without delay. Surrounded by SS men, we had to form a square and stand at attention, as we did for morning roll call. The commandant appeared with his entire general staff. I assumed he was going to bludgeon us once again with his blind faith in the Reich, together with a list of orders, insults and threats -- emulating the infamous outpourings of his master, Adolph Hitler. But the actual ordeal was far worse: an execution. Two SS men brought a young man to the center of the square. Horrified, I recognized Jo, my loving friend, who was only 18 years old. I hadn't previously spotted him in the camp. Had he arrived before or after me? We hadn't seen each other during the days before I was summoned by the Gestapo.
"Now I froze in terror. I prayed that he would escape their lists, their roundups, their humiliations. And here he was, before my powerless eyes, which filled with tears. Unlike me, he had not carried dangerous letters, torn down posters, or signed any statements. What had happened? What had the monsters accused him of? Because of my anguish I have completely forgotten the wording of the death sentence.
"The loudspeakers broadcast some noisy classical music while the SS stripped him naked and shoved a tin pale over his head. Next, they sicced their ferocious German shephards on him: the guard dogs first bit into his groin and thighs, then devoured him right in front of us. His shrieks of pain were distorted and amplified by the pain in which his head was trapped. My rigid body reeled, my eyes gaped at so much horror, tears poured down my cheeks, I fervently prayed that he would black out quickly.
"Since then I sometimes wake up howling in the middle of the night. For fifty years now that scene has kept ceaselessly passing and repassing through my mind. I will never forget the barbaric murder of my love -- before my eyes, before our eyes, for their were hundreds of witnesses..."
REMEMBERING GAY VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST:
WILLEM ARONDEUS--HERO OF THE RESISTANCE --
HON. GERRY E. STUDDS
(Extension of Remarks - April 21, 1993)
[Page: E969]
---
HON. GERRY E. STUDDS in the House of Representatives WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 1993
Mr. STUDDS. Mr. Speaker, on the occasion of the formal dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, I rise to pay tribute to those victims of the Nazi terror who were persecuted because of their sexual orientation.
In the decades before Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Germany was home to the world's first homosexual rights movement. The Nazis responded with a vicious campaign against `homosexual degeneracy' during the 1930's. Some 50,000 to 63,000 men were convicted of homosexual offenses in Nazi courts from 1933 to 1944; 10,000 to 12,000 homosexuals--most of them men--were imprisoned in the concentration camps. They were often singled out for the harshest treatment, and more than half of them died.
Gay prisoners in the camps wore uniforms that bore a pink triangle--an insignia that has since been adopted as a symbol of the modern lesbian and gay rights movement.
According to materials compiled by the Holocaust Memorial, gay survivors were subjected to continued persecution after the collapse of the Nazi regime. The Allied Military Government of Germany refused to release those who had been imprisoned for homosexuality, and the Nazi law criminalizing homosexuality remained in effect until 1969.
For too long, the Nazi victimization of gay people has remained a secret little known and seldom mentioned. The curators of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum have taken an important step in redressing this neglect by including among the displays a poignant collection of artifacts documenting the persecution of homosexuals.
Visitors to the museum are issued an identity card that tells the story of a person of the visitor's age and gender who lived during the Holocaust. During my visit last Monday evening with some of my congressional colleagues, I received a card describing the life of Willem Arondeus, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 1895. This is his story:
One of seven children, Willem grew up in Amsterdam where his parents were theater costume designers. When Willem was 18, he fought with his parents about his homosexuality. He left home and severed contact with his family. He began writing and painting, and in the 1920s was commissioned to do a mural for the Rotterdam town hall. In 1932 he moved to the countryside near Apeldoorn.
1933-39: When he was 38, Willem met Jan, the son of a greengrocer, and they lived together for the next seven years. As a struggling painter, Willem was forced to go on welfare. In 1938 Willem began writing the biography of the Dutch painter Matthijs Maris, and after the book was published, Willem's financial situation improved.
1940-44: The Germans invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. Soon after the occupation, Willem joined the resistance. His unit's main task was to falsify identity papers for Dutch Jews. On March 27, 1943, Willem's unit attacked the registry building and set it on fire. They were attempting to destroy records against which false identity papers could be checked. Thousands of files were destroyed. Five days later the unit was betrayed and arrested. That July, Willem and 11 others were executed.
Before his execution, Willem asked his lawyer to testify after the war that `homosexuals are not cowards.' In 1945 Willem was posthumously awarded a medal by the Dutch government.
There is a special poignancy in our remembrance of gay Holocaust victims like Willem Arondeus. Unlike those who could marry and have children, many gay people perished with no one but us to remember them. We are their family, and we will never forget them.
Mr. Speaker, I am struck by the remarkable fact that the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum coincides with what will be one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in U.S. history. The march on Washington for lesbian and gay civil rights, scheduled for Sunday, April 25, 1993, is expected to draw hundreds of thousands from throughout the United States. These people are coming to Washington to bear witness to the continuing discrimination visited upon lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans. Like Willem Arondeus, these Americans are murdered, assaulted, and denied basic civil rights simply because of who they are. Those who have the moral and physical courage of Willem Arondeus are told they are unfit to serve their country.
This situation represents a tragic failure of our society to learn the lessons of history. We must never forget, nor allow the world to forget, that the degradation and dehumanization of any member of the human family endangers the life and liberty of us all.
http://www.pink-triangle.org/
Well, this news hasn't been posted on other websites, I don't think. Furthermore, yesterday was the day to honor the victims of Auschwitz. The gays were simply honoring their fellow victims during that time. Of course they could, and probably do, have their own memorial, but to accuse them of being attention whores is just distasteful and wrong. It's not unlike the Jews marching with Dr. Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights era because they sympathize with their cause and knew what it felt like to be a pariah, discriminated, and seen as a fifth column, not because they were seeking attention. Maybe you need to apologize to aidanjm and those that died during the holocaust.
LordMagnusKain
Banned
hey, Aj, why don't you just post every article you see on gay365 ?
oh wait, you do.
sorry.
oh wait, you do.
sorry.
Given the current political climate, I think gays have every right to draw attention to themselves as victims of the holocaust, because they truly were, along with a lot of other non-jews- Leftists, Roma, Slavs, dwarves, and the disabled- anybody considered to be an enemy of or a drain on the Nazi order. Anybody "different". Anybody who fell on the wrong side of the "Us vs Them" divide.
Today, of course, that divide is merely placed in a slightly different alignment, but the same principles apply. Whomever is the most despised will serve nicely for the purposes of those leading the chant. For Islamic fascists, it's the Christian fascists, and vice versa... toss in any other despised minority available to add regional or national flavor...
Today, of course, that divide is merely placed in a slightly different alignment, but the same principles apply. Whomever is the most despised will serve nicely for the purposes of those leading the chant. For Islamic fascists, it's the Christian fascists, and vice versa... toss in any other despised minority available to add regional or national flavor...
I think it's good they are bringing it up. The media is too affraid to address these topics for fear of being accused of being liberal and sympathetic to gays. A lot of people have the impression that the Holocaust is just about the Jews, and as long as they aren't antisemitic it won't happen again. Obviously that Holocaust was mostly about the Jews, but the next one could be about some other minority.
What's wrong with that exactly? It's not like you are forced to respond to them. For one, I believe the articles that he posts are very good.
It's true that Jews, Christians, Poles, Slaves and mentally disabled died as well. It's just that we don't normally talk about gays being killed by the Nazis. Is their something wrong with that?
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