NEVER SAY DIE

The Last Pink Triangle Holocaust Survivor Just Died

At age 20, openly gay German-resident Rudolf Brazda witnessed Hitler rise to power. By age 29, the Nazi any-gay law known as “Paragraph 175? declared Brazda and other homosexuals a threat, and so they shipped him and other gays off to the Buchenwald concentration camp where he became prisoner 7952 and got a pink triangle slapped onto his uniform. He survived the labor camp where 56,000 out of 238,000 prisoners died from execution, exhaustion, or illness. And ever since, he has spent his life attending gay celebrations and commemorations of gay Holocaust victims. Yesterday, the 98-year-old survivor died quietly in his sleep. His cremains will rest alongside his partner of 50+ years, Edward Mayer, who passed in 2003. Luckily, Brazda published a book of his experiences just before he died so that his memory will live on.

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