Were gays persecuted in occupied europe

They arrested gay men and tortured them, forcing them to give up their address books and names of partners in an attempt to create a register of all gay men in Germany. On the 28 Junethe Nazis revised Paragrapha section of the German Criminal Code which banned homosexual contact. Between andan estimatedmen were arrested for violating Nazi Germany's law against homosexuality, and of these, approximately 50, were sentenced to prison.

The persecution of homosexuals was extended to the annexed territories but not to the rest of German-occupied Europe; [72] the Nazis were mostly uninterested in punishing homosexuals who were not considered ethnically German.

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{INSERTKEYS} [73]. Meanwhile, in the areas governed by the Austrian Penal Code, one of very few in Europe to prohibit lesbian acts (section I/b), several hundred women were persecuted. At Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen, an exhibition highlights the precarious situation of gays and lesbians in Nazi Germany and the occupied countries of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Since , in Verviers, Belgium, a plaque has commemorated the gay and lesbian victims of the Nazi regime.

The death rate among the soldiers in this division, which was notorious for its brutality towards Russian partisans, was extremely high. Born in Germany, and living in Prague, Czechoslovakia during the occupation, he was an athlete, a sports teacher, and an activist. Given the social stigma of homosexuality at this time, the badge marked the prisoners out for particularly cruel treatment not just from the camp guards, but also their fellow inmates.

This only changed after the s under the influence of a new generation of gay activists. As head of the SA storm troops, made up mostly of World War I veterans and carefully selected hooligans, Roehm was responsible for operations directed mostly against Jews and other opponents of Hitler. And so, she deserves a mention in this article. Josef came from a Catholic family and was imprisoned purely based on his sexuality.

You can read about the journeys of Gad Beck , Pierre Seel , Rudolf Brazda and Albrecht Becker , while the moving documentary Paragraph chronicles the lives of several gay men imprisoned by the Third Reich. Like other nationalists of the day, Himmler had an obsession about der Volk. If you are interested in reading more about this topic, here are some references you can look into:. So what does the queer community have to complain about today?

Alfred Bernarth Born This was supposed to prevent masturbation. The optimism and glamour of the s should not obscure the fact that this was also a time of oppression, despair and fear. Especially when you consider that elsewhere in the world an individual can face a state-imposed death by stoning simply because of their sexuality. We trembled, because the death rate among workers in that factory was higher than anywhere else.

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Kurt Hiller, whom Magnus Hirschfeld had named as the head of his Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, was sent to the concentration camp in Oranienburg, from which he was released nine months later for unknown reasons. This came next to the already existing Article bis, which determined the higher age of consent for homosexual contacts. Political prisoners wore a red triangle.

But you must search for them. His story was written up by his friend, under the pseudonym Heinz Heger, and you can read his story in the book, The Men with the Pink Triangle. Jews were persecuted regardless of their sexuality. Their chance of surviving imprisonment in concentration camps was very low.

Queer Persecution and the Issue with Documenting Their Stories | Holocaust

If you want to find out more about the experiences of individuals imprisoned by the Nazis due to their sexuality, we have a number of stories available on our website. He stated that Germany was too weak militarily to win the war. Perhaps partly through activism in the US, the pink triangle re-emerged as a symbol in Western Europe.

While there is growing equality for homosexuals in Europe and the Americas, research from Stonewall has were that one in six people in Britain who are occupied, lesbian or bisexual persecute experienced a hate crime or gay in the last three years. Moreover, in Germany, the Netherlands, France and Belgium, the laws on public indecency could be used to prosecute homosexual contacts. Beck attempted to rescue him inbut Lewin, trying to protect his family, refused to leave.

Little is known about the lesbians who were europe the camps.