Don't Forget the Gay Holocaust

As gay men and lesbians, we greatly anticipate June as Gay Pride Month. It is a time to celebrate our gains in the ongoing fight for equal rights. And indeed, we should be full of pride about our accomplishments. However, June should also be the month in which we reflect about our past history, which we all know was not always rosy. In addition to being Gay Pride Month, June is also Holocaust Remembrance Month. Gay men, like the Jews, Gypsies, and others, were targeted by the Nazis in World War II-era Germany. Sadly, even many out and proud gay men and lesbians are unaware of this dark chapter in our history. Over 100,000 gay men were arrested as "degenerates" in Nazi Germany. Between 10,000 and 15,000 of these men were sent to concentration camps. Today, it is estimated that less than 10 of them are alive today. Until gay liberation in the late '60's/early '70's, this historical malady was most likely never talked about. Only fairly recently have writers and filmmakers attempted to tackle this subject. Certainly, there was no shortage of published materials dealing with the Holocaust through the years. However, trying to find materials dealing solely or at least in-depthly about the persecution of gays was a lot more difficult. Most sources I discovered-- via magazines, books, and the Internet-- dealt with the Holocaust exclusively in the perspective of Jewish history. Luckily, I came across Richard Plant's 1986 book "The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals", a complete and engrossing survey about this atrocity. The book is easy reading, loaded with historical facts and figures, and touches many related subjects, including information about the gay male situation in other World War II-era countries in Europe. This book is available in paperback from www.Amazon.com ($10.50) and other sources. It is highly recommended for anyone interested in gay/lesbian history. It is widely known that in pre-World War II Germany, there was a thriving gay subculture. Many gay bars existed-- especially in Berlin, which was known for its thriving gay and lesbian nightlife. There was also a Gay Rights Movement in Weimar-era Berlin which was one of the first gay-rights movements in Europe. This crusade was largely responsible for passing the Penal Reform Code in 1928, which abolished Germany's infamous Paragraph 175. (Paragraph 175 was a clause which made man-to-man sex a crime. It had been on the books in Germany since 1871, but was rarely enforced. Paragraph 175 read: "An unnatural sex act committed between persons of the male sex or by humans with animals is punishable by imprisonment; the loss of civil rights may be imposed.")

Sadly, in 1929 the Nazis were swept into power, and the Penal Reform Code was never put into effect. Hitler's rise to power in 1934 saw a crackdown on gay men, and the anti-gay laws were expanded to make kissing, embracing, and even fantasies between two men as "punishable acts". Often, rumors and gossip could be used as "evidence" to "accuse" a man of homosexuality. Pro-gay literature was destroyed, and gay bars were raided. Gay men, the Nazis believed, stood in the way of the Nazi wish to improve the "Aryan race": gays would not procreate, and didn't fit into the "masculine" Nazi ideal. Between 1933 and 1945, thousands of gay men were arrested and at least 10,000 were sent to concentration camps. They were given the pink triangle to wear-- a symbol which survives today as a symbol of pride. In the camps, the prisoners were often tortured, castrated, sexually abused, and used as guinea pigs for unethical research experiments. It is estimated that approximately 60% of these men died at the camps. In a shocking twist of fate, the prisoners of these camps were often sent BACK to prison if they survived, because the anti-sodomy laws in Germany remained in effect until 1969. Even if these survivors eventually found freedom, they were not entitled to restitution because they were labeled as criminal inmates. Lesbians were not targeted by the Nazis, partially because there were no laws against lesbianism and partially because lesbians, according to Nazi mentality, were "able to breed". However, in the new repressive atmosphere, the lesbian subculture of Berlin and other cities languished. For anyone interested in learning about this subject further, there have been several movies made about the Gay Holocaust. The movie "Bent", a provocative story about two gay men at a concentration camp in Nazi Germany, will be available on DVD on June 3rd, priced to own at $14.99. (Check out www.Amazon.com or www.TLAVideo.com.) "Bent" had a long road to the big screen. The movie is based on Martin Sherman's 1979 play of the same name, which was performed around the world and starred Richard Gere in its Broadway debut. "Bent" was released theatrically in 1997 to good reviews. However, given the movie's subject matter, its NC-17 rating, and a British cast largely unknown to American audiences, "Bent" had only a limited release and did not make much of a mark at the box office. Nevertheless, "Bent" is a landmark film dealing with a subject almost never before tackled on the screen, and a must-see for those interested in gay and lesbian history. Beautifully photographed and wonderfully acted, "Bent" opens with a scene inside a lively Berlin gay nightclub in 1934. We see drag queens (One of them, Greta, is played by Mick Jagger[!], who actually does his own singing and looks quite fetching!), sexy performance artists, and many good-looking, young men with perfect haircuts and great bodies. These men seem to care about nothing except sex, drinking, drugs, and having fun.

For a while, we think we're watching a 1940's-style "Cabaret" theme night at SBNY in Manhattan! But this pretty picture soon fades when when the gay witch-hunt starts and we see our hero Max (played by Clive Owen) being shipped off to a concentration camp. He watches his lover Rudy being beaten to death en route to the camp-- the first of many unpleasant, almost unwatchable scenes throughout the movie. We see it all-- the humiliation, degradation, forced submission, and hopelessness-- in stark realism. At the camp, Max meets another prisoner, Horst (Lothaire Bluteau). Despite the fact that the prisoners were not even allowed to look at each other, much less touch each other, the two soon fall in love and give each other a slim shred of hope amidst their bleak circumstances. Like "Longtime Companion", the 1990 film also dealing with unpleasant issue of gay history (the early days of the AIDS epidemic), "Bent" uses relatively unknown actors, which can make us forget that we are watching a movie and make it hard to distance ourselves from the story. Also like "Longtime Companion", there's no Hollywoodized, tacked-on happy ending, leaving the audience to face the fact-based message head on, unpleasant as it may be. Compare this film with, for example, Cher's "Tea With Mussolini", a 1999 film dealing with World War II which alludes to the horrors of being sent to a concentration camp but (most likely intentionally) keeps them well-hidden from the audience. More recently, the 2000 documentary "Paragraph 175" offers an illuminating look at the Gay Holocaust, starting with the atmosphere in Germany which led up to it. The film was produced and directed by Rob Epstein and Jerry Friedman, and narrated by actor Rupert Everett. "Paragraph 175" follows the mission of Klaus Muller, a historian from the U.S.Holocaust Memorial Museum who grew up in Germany. Muller believed that his own lack of knowledge about the gay experience during the Holocaust reflected the general worldwide ignorance about the subject. He returned to the country to interview survivors from that era: several men and one woman, ranging in age from 77 to 95. The subjects lived through the changing political climate, remembering how freedom of expression and identity gave way to police raids of bars, arrests, and-- shortly afterward-- far worse.

Listening to the stories of these elderly subjects is fascinating yet deeply disturbing. If there's a silver lining to the cloud of tragedy that these survivors endured, it's that finally, they have had their stories told on some level. In addition to interviews, "Paragraph 175" also uses archival photos and video footage to vividly recreate the atmosphere in Germany both before and after Hitler's rise to power. Other movies dealing with this subject include "Aimee & Jaguar"(1999), a lesbian love story set in Nazi Germany. Based on a true story, the film is about the romance that develops between Lilly, the wife of a Nazi officer; and Felice, an out lesbian who's also Jewish as well. This critically-acclaimed movie is available from www.TLAVideo.com in both VHS ($21.99) and a Special Edition DVD loaded with extras ($24.99). There's also "Desire" (1989), a fascinating documentary on the history of sexual mores in Germany from 1910 until the rise of Hitler. Using many archival photos and video footage, as well as interviews, the movie describes how Germany's liberal and enlightened attitudes towards the human body, physical fitness, and sexuality-- including gay/lesbian equality-- gave way to an atmosphere of repression and oppression as the Nazi mentality took over. "Desire" is available on VHS from www.TLAVideo.com for $26.99. To me, the most disturbing aspect of my research on the gay Holocaust was the uncomfortable similarities between certain aspects of the environment in Nazi Germany and the problems we face today as gay men and lesbians. In the 70's and 80's, there was much controversy about whether gay victims of the Holocaust should be memorialized and remembered in Holocaust literature and museums. Anti-gay activists argued that gays were targeted for their ACTIONS-- in distinction, for example, to the Jews, who were targeted merely for who they WERE. This sounds too much like the arguments used by sanctimonious religious hypocrites who state that they "love" homosexuals but hate their "sinful" behavior, ignorantly believing that our sexual behavior and feelings can be completely isolated from our emotions.

Like Adolph Hitler, the religious/political right uses fear, hatred, lies, and violence (gay bashing) to grab and hold attention and power. Hitler himself was rumored to have been a homosexual. This may or may not have been true. However, it is well known that most homophobic people are intensely insecure and/or frightened by homosexual feelings within themselves (Roy Cohn, J. Edgar Hoover). In this view, Hitler may have been the ultimate self-hating homosexual: going to extremes to eliminate the element which he despised within himself. Both homophobia and anti-Semitism which precipitated the Holocaust are sadly very much alive today despite our more "enlightened" society. Right-wing activists try to boycott, censor, or ban books and other materials which they find personally objectionable. Gay-friendly materials have long been one of their biggest targets. In Nazi Germany, book-burning and censorship were commonplace. Whereas in Nazi Germany the "reason" for persecution of gay men was because gay men "couldn't reproduce", today the popular "justification" for attacking gays used by the Religious/Political Right is that gay men engage in "unhealthy" lifestyles. The point is, a group that seeks to vilify another groiup will ALWAYS be able to find a "reason". What have we learned form this horrific incident? Granted, the United States has fundamental differences from Nazi Germany, in which Hitler had absolute power. But it is dangerously naive to believe that something as unimaginable as the Holocaust could never happen again. Think of the ethnic cleansing that happened in the former Yugoslavia a few years ago. More recently, in the African country of Rwanda in 1999, genocide was responsible for the deaths of a million people. Living in New York and having just seen another Gay Pride Month, we sometimes take our freedoms for granted. As gay men and lesbians, we are indeed entitled to enjoy our gains in society. But we must also fight each day to maintain and expand our rights, or at least support others who work hard each day to do so. We must not become complacent. We must not under-estimate the power of homophobic propaganda and lies. We must not be so self-indulgent to believe that the same society which protects our current freedoms will always do do, or that loyalty towards our country will necessarily make us equal. In Nazi Germany, most gay men apparently thought they were "safe" because they thought of themselves as "German Christians" above any other classification... the same way that many GLBT people have intense pride in being American. Yet, among other injustices, we're blamed for September 11th... and I'm not going to promote any further negativity by rehashing details about who made those infamous comments. But I will say that it's the mindset of someone who would say shit like that has, through the years, given empowerment to those who have called for, among other things, having all HIV positive people register with the government and/or putting HIV positive people into concentration camps. Yes,Virginia, it's all true. . Above all, we must pay attention to what is happenning in the world around us on all levels-- local, state, national, and world. Forgetting, downplaying, or dismissing events of history is dangerous. We must confront them-- and, hopefully, learn from them. Scars never heal, but they force us to remember... as painful as those memories may be.