May 28, 2008
Germany Unveils Monument to Gay Holocaust Victims
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What can I say? My heart swells with gratitude — while my anger swells at the disgusting, revisionist lies of Holocaust deniers (like Scott Lively) that are allowed to spread.
But no anger now. Just gratitude, and admiration for a country with the courage and humility to acknowledge the starkest genocide of the twentieth century — and to recognize the slaughter of and atrocities inflicted upon the homosexual “undesirables”:
Monument to homosexual victims of Nazis unveiledBERLIN (Reuters) — Germany unveiled a monument to the tens of thousands of homosexuals persecuted under the Nazis, whose laws were used to prosecute gay men for a generation after World War Two.
Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit, who is openly gay, hailed the grey, concrete memorial as a long overdue acknowledgement of the repression of homosexuals, 50,000 of whom were convicted by Nazi courts during Adolf Hitler’s 12-year dictatorship.
“The monument consecrated today is a reminder to us of the horrors of the past and draws our attention to the degree of discrimination that currently exists,” Wowereit said.
“Great efforts will still need to be undertaken before the sight of two men or women kissing here or in Moscow or elsewhere on the planet is accepted by society in general.” …
Nazi authorities ordered the castration of some gay men, and sent thousands more to concentration camps, many of whom were murdered or died from hunger and disease.
Until 1969, when the centre-left Social Democrats headed a government for the first time since the Weimar Republic, Nazi laws continued to be applied to prosecute homosexuals. …
Filed under: Europe, Hate Crimes, Hate Speech, Homophobia, Radical Religious Right
