Can you say the word "hipokryzja"?

The GULLY | Gay Mundo | Gays Excluded From Auschwitz Commemoration

quote:

---

Gays Excluded From Auschwitz Commemoration
The only victims not remembered or invited.
By Tomek Kitlinski

​

WARSAW, FEB. 3, 2005. Holocaust survivors and world leaders held a ceremony last week in Poland to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp by the Red Army. Gay victims were the only ones not remembered, and gay groups the only ones not invited.

​

A thousand Holocaust survivors, the Presidents of Israel, Russia, France, Germany and Poland, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, and Prince Edward of the United Kingdom, attended the Auschwitz ceremony.

​

Israeli President Moshe Katsav called the camp "the largest graveyard of the Jewish people." Between 1.1 million and 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, were put to death in Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi death camps.

​

Alongside Jews, gays, Gypsies (Roma and Sinti), Soviet prisoners of war and Poles were killed at Auschwitz. Partial analyses of official Nazi records indicate that as many as 15,000 gay men perished in concentration camps. But independent scholars think this is just the tip of the iceberg.

​

The director of the Museum of the Former Camp of Auschwitz did not reply to a request from Poland's gay activist NGO Campaign against Homophobia to lay a wreath to the gay victims. Neither was the Campaign's delegation officially admitted to the ceremony of commemoration.

​

"Homosexuals are the only group murdered at Auschwitz whose representatives were not invited to the ceremony of the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the camp," reported next day Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland's biggest daily.

​

In Brussels, members of the European Parliament stood in a minute of silence to pay tribute to the victims of the Holocaust and to mark the anniversary. The European Parliament also passed a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and racism and paying tribute to the victims of Nazi Germany, including gays.

​

The draft resolution said: "(...) the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where hundreds of thousands of Jews, Roma, homosexuals, Poles and other prisoners of various nationalities were murdered, is not only a major occasion for European citizens to remember and condemn the enormous horror and tragedy of the Holocaust, but also for addressing the disturbing rise in anti-Semitism, and especially anti-Semitic incidents, in Europe, and for learning anew the wider lessons about the dangers of victimizing people on the basis of race, ethnic origin, religion, politics, or sexual orientation."

​

Poland's European Parliament members immediately protested against the list of Auschwitz victims, where gays preceded Poles. Polish deputy Wojciech Roszkowski told the Brussels body: "The life of every human is equally important, but when we speak of big numbers, putting the Jewish, Roma, homosexual and Polish victims together borders on the absurd." Poland's largely chauvinistic and homophobic media echoed the protest. In the final text of the resolution approved by the European Parliament, gay victims were placed at the end of the list. At this week's ceremony at Auschwitz, on Polish soil, gay victims were not mentioned at all.

​

But history cannot be erased: "The Nazi campaign against homosexuality targeted the more than one million German men who, the state asserted, carried a 'degeneracy' that threatened the 'disciplined masculinity' of Germany," according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

​

Gay men were stripped of their civil rights by the Nazis in 1935 and forced to wear pink triangles to identify them. Lesbians were also persecuted, but less severely, in part because Nazis considered women inferior to men and dependent on them, and did not see lesbians as a threat.

​

"Denounced as 'antisocial parasites' and as 'enemies of the state,' more than 100,000 men were arrested under a broadly interpreted law against homosexuality. Approximately 50,000 men served prison terms as convicted homosexuals, while an unknown number were institutionalized in mental hospitals. Others perhaps hundreds were castrated under court order or coercion," concludes the Holocaust Museum.

---

i'm confused.were these gay GERMANS? or gay jews? were they just murdered because they were gay?if their nationality/ethnicity was already represented, why should they get double representation?

If they were gay Jews, then yes they were represented. However, if they were gay Germans, no they were not represented.

They killed gay germans. One of Hitler's top men was discovered to be gay and he was either imprisoned or killed for it.I mean if we wanted to play semantic games like this then we could simply say germans and poles and romas were killed... since those were the nationalities.In the end the Nazi movement targeted many different classes of people for removal. The Jews unquestionably took the hardest hit and people should remember the lesson of religious and cultural intolerance that took place there.However historical remembrance really has been a whitewash of their intolerance of sexual minorities, who they did target just the same. If not, why would they bother making a pink triangle in the first place, when the star would have been good enough?

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Jacen>>Back then, homosexuality was never an open topic anyway, so the only way that a homosexual was labeled or identified was from the captors point of view. I mean, how would you even know if a guy were gay unless you slept with him or he told you? The persecution of that day included anyone different from the accepted norm or targeted by someone within the norm who did not like them.

What the hell are you talking about? People generally don't talk about cheating on their wives today, yet it gets found out... how? People can discover if you are having homosexual relations, or if there is significant signs that you are.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

This could not be more incorrect.Homosexuals were rounded up and sent to concentration camps because they were homosexual. There is no doubt to this because homosexuals were forced to wear upside-down pink triangles on their clothing, just as Jews were required to wear the star of David.This is where the "pink triangle" symbol used today by diversity groups originated.

Lam-Do you happen to know if people from disability advocacy groups were invited? People with mental retardation and developmental disabilities were the first people who were murdered as part of the Final Solution; (though I don't remember if any of them were specifically murdered at Auschwitz).

well, i asked the questions because it played an importance. if they were gay germans, then they are pretty obviously not being represented. if they were gay jews, what's to say they weren't killed just becuase they were jewish?it's also why i asked if homosexuals were actually a targetted group. i'm just trying comprehend the situation, as the article did not seem to provide pertinant information. instead, it went for bias and trying to provoke outrage. even though i'm inclined to agree with it.not trying to play semantic games, trying to fully grasp all the technicalities of the situation. it's not something i've heard alot about before.

I'm going on a fuzzy old memory but I do believe gays were specifically and separately targeted. IIRC they had pink armbands where the Jews were yellow.

If you (or anyone else) is really interested, I recommend The Pink Triangle by Richard Plant.

i come from an area of the country (us) that has a huge jewish population. in our public education systems we really only hear about the 6 million jews. sometimes a brief mention that other ethnic groups were "cleansed" as well, such as the gypsies.and i've never been especially interested in the holocaust, so i never really researched it.

Arachnophilia writes:

quote:

---

it's also why i asked if homosexuals were actually a targetted group. i'm just trying comprehend the situation, as the article did not seem to provide pertinant information. instead, it went for bias and trying to provoke outrage.

---

(*blink!*)You did not just say that, did you?The action of the Nazis against gays didn't even end when the Holocaust was over. When the camps were liberated, gays were sent to prison because being gay was still a crime.To this day, members of the SS have their time in the SS counted toward their government pension. Gays have their time in the concentration camps discounted unlike every other group. Being gay was a crime. Of all survivors of the Holocaust, only gays have been denied reparations.And you claim bias? Of course they're trying to provoke outrage. The situation is clearly outrageous!

quote:

---

it's not something i've heard alot about before.

---

(*blink!*)You did not just say that, did you? Are you seriously trying to say you had absolutely no idea that the reason why a pink triangle has been adopted by various gay organizations is because of the Holocaust?It never occurred to you to do any research on this issue before speaking?Question: If you admit that you knew nothing about it, why did you think that the article "went for bias" and tried "to provoke outrage"?

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

And I guess that I put my foot in my mouth. I assumed that aside from the gays who were "out", nobody would even know about them back then. I mean, even today if Dick Cheney were secretly gay, how would we ever know?By the way, Jacen..was does "hipokryzja" mean? Is that hypocrisy in German?

Actually, no. The disabled never had an organized group or representatives. Also, very few survived the ordeal. If you were not a disabled person then at least you had a chance by working or doing something they wanted. But if you were disabled, they shot you on the spot. This is why there are next to none handicap survivor of the holocaust.

---

People, please look at the Style Guide for EvC thread by Sylas. Pay particular attention to step 3.SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Refusal to use the search engine may cause brain cancer.