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The pink triangle (German: Rosa Winkel) was one of the Nazi concentration camp badges, used by the Nazis to identify male prisoners in concentration camps who were sent there because of their homosexuality. Every prisoner had to wear a triangle on his or her jacket, the color of which was to categorize him or her according "to his kind." Jews had to wear the yellow badge, and "anti-social individuals" (which included vagrants, "work shy" individuals and often, but not exclusively, lesbians), the black triangle.
The inverted pink triangle has become an international symbol of gay pride and the gay rights movement, and is second in popularity only to the rainbow flag.
History
Not all of the prisoners with a pink triangle identified themselves as gay (sometimes they were married to women, and had homosexual sex only a few times). Not everyone convicted under Paragraph 175 was sent to a concentration camp; in fact, most were sent to ordinary jails. Most gay men who suffered and died in Nazi concentration camps actually wore the yellow star (because they were both Gay and Jewish). As such, it is difficult to construct a coherent gay victim group and count its numbers.
While the number of homosexuals in concentration camps is hard to estimate, Richard Plant gives a rough estimate of the number of men convicted for homosexuality "between 1933 to 1944 at between 50,000 and 63,000." The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals (1986) by Richard Plant (New Republic Books). ISBN 0-80-500600-1.
Those imprisoned and made to wear the pink triangle also have never been recompensated by the German government. If they continued to be openly gay they could be reimprisoned again and again, as was Heinz Dörmer, who served 20 years in total both in a Nazi concentration camp and in the jails of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Nazi amendments to Paragraph 175, which turned homosexuality from a minor offense into a felony, remained intact after the war for a further 24 years.
Today, fewer than ten of those imprisoned for homosexuality are known to be still living. In 2000, the documentary film Paragraph 175 recorded some of their testimonies.
See also
- History of gays in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust
- Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures
- "Bent" (play)
- Nazi concentration camp badges
- Homomonument
References
Further reading
- An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (1999) by Gad Beck (University of Wisconsin Press). ISBN 0299165000.
- Liberation Was for Others: Memoirs of a Gay Survivor of the Nazi Holocaust (1997) by Pierre Seel (Perseus Book Group). ISBN 0306807564.
- I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi Terror (1995) by Pierre Seel. ISBN 0465045006.
External links
- A short explanation of the origin of pink and other queer triangles
- Auschwitz Concentration Camp: The Pink-Triangle prisoners
LGBT history of Germany | LGBT symbols | Nazi concentration camps | Nazi Germany
Rosa Winkel | Triángulo rosa | Triangle rose | Triangolo rosa | ピンク・トライアングル | Triângulo rosa | Pink triangle | Pembe Üçgen | 粉红三角形
"Pink triangle"