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Monday, June 27, 2022

From persecution to pink triangles

 

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Throughout Pride Month, we share the stories of lesser-known victims of Nazi persecution who fought to live free in a time of escalating repression. Following World War I, Germany’s major cities were home to growing communities of people who today might identify themselves as LGBTQ+. But when the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, individuals in these social networks were increasingly harassed, and gay men were prosecuted under Germany's criminal code, imprisoned, and even killed.

 

 

 

 

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Photos: Manfred Lewin (left), killed at Auschwitz, and Gad Beck, who tried to save him. USHMM, courtesy of Jizchak Schwersenz and Gad Beck; Prisoner badge worn by Josef Kohout while incarcerated in the Flossenbürg concentration camp. USHMM, gift of Wilhelm A. Kroepfl; A couple dances at the Eldorado, a nightclub frequented by members of Berlin's gay and lesbian community, 1929. bpk-Bildagentur; (Left) Portrait of Willem Arondeus, the leader of a gay resistance group in Amsterdam. USHMM, courtesy of Marco Entrop. (Right) Portrait of Frieda Belinfante after her return to the Netherlands from a refugee camp in Switzerland. USHMM, courtesy of Frieda Belinfante; ID pictures of a prisoner, accused of homosexuality, who arrived at Auschwitz on June 6, 1941. He died there a year later. Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau w Oświęcimiu; Signed portrait of German physician and sex researcher Magnus Hirschfeld. USHMM, courtesy of Magnus-Hirschfeld Gesellschaft

 

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UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126

Main telephone: 202.488.0400
TTY: 202.488.0406