LGBT History Month Part II

Welcome to Part II of my honor to LGBT History Month. We left off during the war years, where an unknown number of homosexual men were arrested and deported to concentration camps or held in prison Many died and never returned home. Gay women were often not imprisoned because it was felt by Nazi leaders that since they could still produce children, they should be spared. When the war officially ended with  Nazi Germany's surrender in May 1945, former concentration camp prisoners attempted to salvage the rest of their humanity and start a new life.

Yet, for some of these victims, that could not happen. Homosexuals could not start a new life after their release from concentration camps. Homosexuality remained a CRIME. The Allied government in Germany revoked dozens of laws and decrees after the fall of Nazi Germany but Paragraph 175 remained intact. Former homosexual concentration camp prisoners were forced to continue their "sentence" regardless of their experience in the Holocaust. Paragraph 175 remained in-effect until 1969 when the law was revised "to decriminalize homosexual relations between men over the age of 21." 

Because of continued persecution, recognition for this community's suffering under Nazi terror did not happen. Many homosexual men (and women) kept their experiences to themselves, continuing to live in fear in a "democracy". In June 1956, the West German organizatinon called Federal Reparation Law for Victims of National Socialism declared that interment in a concentration camp for homosexuality did not qualify an individual for compensation. So, survivors continued to suffer. It was not until May 1985 that West German president Richard von Weizsäcker publicly commemorated homosexual victims of Nazi terror. Finally, in 1994, four years after reunification, Germany abolished Paragraph 175 but it was not until 2002 that the German parliament pardoned those homosexuals persecuted under Nazi rule in the name of Paragraph 175. 

Due to homophobia, many homosexual survivors of the Holocaust have died without telling their stories. We, the people of 2012, have very few first hand accounts of their struggle during the Nazi period and the suffering they endured. Pierre Seel is one homosexual Holocaust survivor who has spoken up in support of equal rights for gays and lesbians. He was a French man who was deported to a concentration camp. He, unfortunately, died in 2005 leaving behind his memoir called I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi Terror as his legacy. Homophobia still runs rampant world-wide. 

Please take a moment today, November 1st, to review the month of October and what it means to be part of the LGBT community and supporter. Without recognition and support, laws, like some in the United States, will continue to violate the civil rights and liberties of our gay brothers and sisters. Without remembering and acknowledging the suffering of the gay and homosexual community under Nazi rule, people will continue to forget their struggle as well as continue to support homophobia and hatred around the world. 

Sources: 
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/hsx/

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005149

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/homosexuals/

http://www.amazon.com/Pierre-Seel-Deported-Homosexual-Memoir/dp/0465045006

Hammermeister, Kai. "Inventing History: Toward a Gay Holocasut Literature." The Germany Quarterly 70 (Winter 1997): 18-26.

McCormick, Richard W. "From 'Caligari' to Dietrich: Sexual, Social, and Cinematic Discourses in Weimar Film." Signs 18 (Spring, 1993): 640-668.