Memorial Hour for Victims of the Holocaust Late Remembrance of Queer Victims

For the first time, the Bundestag will honor LGBTIQ people during the Holocaust memorial service. Hour of remembrance for victims of the Holocaust: Late remembrance of queer victims. This has been a significant advancement in the eyes of historians.

BERLIN taz | Mary Pünjer from Hamburg was 36 years old and married when she was arrested in 1940. Photo: Heiko Rebsch/picture alliance Bundestag President Bas (SPD) during a visit to the memorial site of the Bernburg Nazi killing center. The Jew was charged with frequenting lesbian bars and having sexual relations with a woman.

Pünjer was initially detained in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp for her "asocial" behavior before being transferred to the Ravensbrück women's detention facility a short while later. Although it was noted that she is a "lesbian," she was required to wear a green triangle on her prison uniform because she is an "asocial".

The Bernburg killing facility housed the murder of Mary Pünjer on May 28, 1942. Karl Gorath was accused of engaging in homosexual behavior when he was 26 years old. He was taken into custody under Section 175 and later given a 1939 sentence for "unnatural fornication.".

The Nazis transported him to the Neuengamme concentration camp after he completed his prison terms, and he was later sent to Auschwitz and the Mauthausen concentration camp. He gained freedom in 1945.

To commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Bundestag will hold a ceremony this Friday that will center on the lives of Pünjer and Gorath. Speaking about them will be the actors Jannik Schümann and Maren Kroymann.

Prior to that, the memorial speech will be delivered by survivor Rozette Kats. The Jewish girl, who was born in 1942, managed to live in Amsterdam because her parents had placed her with Christian foster parents.

The memory of the queer victims of the Nazis, which the historian Anna Hájková, who teaches in Great Britain, believes is long overdue, is described as "good, though too late.". According to historian Hájková, who has extensively studied queer Holocaust history, many people fought for this "emancipatory gesture" over a long period of time.

The doyenne of research on lesbian women under the Nazis, Berlin historian Claudia Schoppmann, concurs: "That's great progress. The historian and taz author Lutz van Dijk back's initiative was largely responsible for the commemoration of the queer victims of National Socialism.

Several academics, Holocaust survivors, and representatives for the lgbtq community signed a petition that he sent to the German Bundestag's Presidium in 2018. Dutchwoman Rozette Kats is also a part of the latter group.

The federal government wants to promote a stronger queer culture of remembrance. According to van Dijk, "it was important to us from the start that not only so-called "victims" demand their right to correct and differentiated remembrance, but that this happens together with other victim groups such as Jews or Roma and Sinti. Since 2011, specific victim groups have been remembered, but Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), a former president of the Bundestag, refused to restrict the commemoration to the suffering of victims who identified as queer.

The project is only now being carried out with the help of SPD member and current Bundestag President Bärbel Bas. Bas already placed two wreaths at the "Rosa Winkel" memorial plaque on Berlin's Nollendorfplatz on Wednesday.

"This is the first time at all that we are mentioned in connection with this historic act. A board member and managing director of Lesbenring, Ina Roenthal, says that's a positive sign.

"It sends a loud and clear message that queer culture is a part of our society and not just a problem for the minority. Because so many people were impacted by National Socialism's structures, I think it is crucial to remember queer victims.

Rosenthal never questioned the fact that Nazi persecution of homosexuals also affected lesbians and bisexual women: "I come from a Jewish family of women who have always been politically engaged. When we claim that discrimination against lesbian women has not been widespread, we are taking the viewpoint of the perpetrator.

that it is important to strengthen the queer culture of remembrance. She suggests "the funding of research projects to support the historical processing of criminal prosecution and state discrimination against LGBTIQ*," as well as "the funding of research in memorial sites on LGBTIQ*," as countermeasures.

Organizations are able to submit their projects since the action plan has been in effect since mid-January. Additionally, Die Linke submitted a motion in which they expressed their dissatisfaction with the lawmakers for failing to acknowledge the injustice suffered by all queer Nazi victims in both German states after 1945.

The subject will be covered on Thursday night. Hidden behind the honor are historical shoals and conflicts.

It is now widely acknowledged that the tightened language of paragraph 175 contributed to the persecution of gay men under the Nazis, who made it so that even petting was illegal. Up to 15,000 of them were sent to concentration camps where they were required to wear pink triangles and many of them were killed. This occurred frequently after they had already served a prison sentence.

There were a total of about 80,000 men. On the other hand, it is argued that lesbian love was not prohibited and was dealt with appropriately.

In fact, recent research suggests that lesbians have also faced discrimination. According to historian Schoppmann, her sexual preference was viewed as "reprehensible" and did not line up with "healthy popular sentiment.".

Lesbian hangouts were shut down or under surveillance after 1933, just like gay bars. However, the secret police discovered with regret that there were no plans to bring any charges against these relationships despite the Gestapo receiving complaints about lesbian behavior.

The Nazis also targeted lesbians as victims. Spaces that were free vanished.

The anxiety vanished. Lesbians suddenly allowed their hair to get longer in an effort to blend in.

A lot of them got married to men. In contrast to Jews, the vast majority of them managed to survive the Nazi era as covertly as possible.

Men who identify as homosexuals also need to be aware of this. But because they were persecuted in numerous ways, lesbians were also victims of the Nazis.

Schoppmann is aware of numerous instances in which lesbians were locked up because, like Mary Pünjer, they were allegedly "asocial" or of Jewish ancestry. They were accused of insulting the "Führer," which resulted in their imprisonment in the Moringen concentration camp due to the insidiousness law, just like Else Conrad, who operated several lesbian bars in Berlin.

The lesbian musician Ilse Totzke, who was initially a target of the Gestapo due to her interactions with Jewish women and her impolite behavior, is remembered by the historian Anna Hájková. However, she was ultimately sent to the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Ravensbrück after aiding a Jewish woman in escaping, and she was deported to Switzerland. There is no question that Karl Gorath fell victim to the Nazis as a result of his sexual preferences.

You can't definitively say whether Mary Pünjer's death resulted from her "asocial" nature, from the fact that she was regarded as Jewish, or from her love of women. There was no corresponding paragraph forbidding lesbian relationships between women.

According to Claudia Schoppmann, "There were qualitative and quantitative differences between the persecution of men and that of women.". Dealing with the subject led a shady existence for many years.

Anna Hájková laments that "there is no systematic research.". Poor research has been done on the persecution of trans, intergender, and non-binary people. According to Nora Eckert, a board member at TransInterQueer*, "It looks as if trans people were being persecuted even more severely.".

It was possible to bring charges against so-called "transvestites" because they were identified by name as early as the Weimar Republic. "Transgender people are frequently accused of hiding their homosexuality.

According to Eckert, this resulted in harsher prison sentences under the Nazi regime, including the possibility of being sent to a concentration camp. The historian Hájková makes the point that not only the wives and guards were responsible for the suffering of gays and lesbians in the concentration camps.

Additionally, they had to deal with the homophobic prejudices of their fellow prisoners. According to Hájková in her book People without history are dust, these prejudices are reflected in survival reports when homosexual acts are denigrated as repulsive.

homosexuality and the Holocaust. She uses the following quote from a Ravensbrück survivor who wrote about the same-sex acts committed by fellow inmates: "God, these are people.

After the war, there was a corresponding lack of exposure regarding the interaction with these oppressed people. "Are they still human?". anti-gay criminal laws were adopted by the fledgling Federal Republic.

She suffered for years without anyone ever hearing about it because of the infamous paragraph 175 about gays. The anti-gay criminal code was adopted by the fledgling Federal Republic in its Nazi-tightened form, and in the 1950s the Federal Constitutional Court also gave its blessing to this legislation.

Anyone who spoke out about the persecution committed by the Nazis ran the risk of being sought out once more by law enforcement. Just two years after being freed from the concentration camp, in 1947, Karl Gorath was sentenced once more by the same judge who had previously imprisoned him during the Nazi era.

"By the time I was incarcerated in a concentration camp, my defense attorney had applied for the prison sentence to be reduced," he said of his five-year prison sentence. In a 1998 interview with the taz, Gorath claimed that even that had been turned down.

In March 2003, Gorath passed away. It had only been nine years since paragraph 175 was eliminated.

The conclusion of the commemoration ceremony in the Bundestag will be delivered by Klaus Schirdewahn in part because of this. A 1947-year-old Mannheim resident was given a sentence in 1964 for violating paragraph 175 of the law.

He continues to support the rights of lesbians and gay people today.

The historian Hájková makes the point that not only the wives and guards were responsible for the suffering of gays and lesbians in the concentration camps.