German gays are celebrating their pride this month. What better time, then, for Deutsche Welle to remind us of some of the horrors homos once faced:
…The gay pogrom in Germany started exactly 70 years ago, in the summer of 1937. Gestapo men in leather trench coats entered [Alsterhaus department store] during business hours and rounded up about 40 gay employees, who were hauled off in vans waiting out on the street — where this year’s gay pride rally will be held.
What followed were weeks and months of “protective custody” and transfers to mental asylums for “curative treatment” and eventual sentencing to imprisonment in concentration camps.
Bill O’Reilly just came in his pants. It’s the first time he’s ejaculated since 1937.
Paul Raposo
Judging from Michael Glatze’s latest interview, this would be his wet dream. Gays hauled off in vans and taken to reeducation “camps.”
Hey! He even looks like a neo-nazi:
http://doesntfeellikeafriday.blogspot.com/2007/07/lost-balls-found-god.html
Blond, blue eyed and desperate for a pure society. All he needs is a brown shirt.
cjc
Sadly, the gays who survived still faced repression no matter where they went after the war. Much of their history, their story, has been lost.
gayleftborg
cjc
There’s a book I believe called “The Men With The Pink Triangle” which is a decent account of this.
As for Glatze, people need to seriously put him on ignore. Please don’t build that kooky creature up.
stevo
God bless the German gay community!
Thank you for posting this Queerty.
I don’t want to forget.
cjc
Yes, Gayleftborg, I have it, and I’ve read it. However, compared to the mounds of other literature and scholarly work for other victims of the Holocaust, there’s comparatively far less stuff.
queertext
there’s an excellent film about gays in the Holocaust.
nycstudman
“owever, compared to the mounds of other literature and scholarly work for other victims of the Holocaust, there’s comparatively far less stuff.”
I think it’s worth remembering that there were tens of thousands of gay men (no lesbians) in the camps compared to 6 million Jews & 2 million Roma (gypsies). The last few years has seen a surge of interest in, coverage of, and commemoration to, gay victims of the Nazis, so I have to disagree.
cjc
My point is that many of the survivors — of all classes — are dying out. And many of the gay ones — who could give first-hand recountings of the events — are gone.
Paul Raposo
“I think it’s worth remembering that there were tens of thousands of gay men”
All of whom were treated horribly by the Nazi’s AND the other camp prisoners AND by their liberators. That it took this many years for people to finally acknowledge the wrong that was done them is a sad statement on the hierarchy of victim status in society. Lastly, considering how small the numbers of out, or even closeted LGBTQ’s were then, the number of victims shouldn’t matter.