The Dark History Behind the Pink Triangle
Destination: Pink Hell
Due to the coronavirus, no one can travel abroad right now, so it is my pleasure to bring “abroad” to you. Every corner of the world has historical places to celebrate and to pay respects to the LGBTQ community. LGBTQ history was, and still is, deeply problematic.
Today’s journey brings us more than 5,000 miles away from Denver to Sachsenhausen Concentration, Oranienburg, Germany. Together we will explore Nazism’s darkest level in concentration camps for the LGBTQ captives and how the modern LGBTQ community has reversed the dated symbols of embarrassment and hate, into a symbol of bravery, ownership, and Pride.
I cannot attest to everyone’s education, but throughout my K-12, college, and graduate school endeavors, not once did I think about the devastation the LGBTQ predominantly gay men, endured during the Holocaust. I, like many others, was bombarded with the facts of absolute torture and death the Jewish community suffered. It never dawned on me to think about our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, let alone them being the ones who suffered the most. History sure has a way of hiding itself from the most shameful and embarrassing moments. Let’s unmask its truths.
“Paragraph 175” was a provision of the German Criminal Code dating back to 1871, which made homosexuality a crime punishable by death. In the 1930s and 1940s, the German government revamped the provision by reminding society the gays were legally, socially, and morally deviant. The gays were deemed so deviant, that they were believed to be inferior to all other men, having animal instincts, and unable to control their sexual urges. Homosexuals were portrayed as having sex with their siblings, animals, and other vulgar crimes.
Propaganda, such as posters and movies exploiting the gay community, flooded society and brainwashed many to believe gay people were less than human and deserved punishment, and under certain circumstances, even death. Mainly gay men were targeted and punished. Lesbian women tended to fly under the Nazi radar. In fact, lesbian women were undetectable enough to where there is limited documentation of lesbian women in concentration camps at all.
We’re familiar with Nazis forcing Jewish people to wear the yellow Star of David. There was another patch of shame that was distributed: the inverted pink triangle. The inverted pink triangle was the symbol gay men must wear at concentration camps, such as Sachsenhausen. While not all homosexual men were sent to concentration camps, for those that were, the experience of extreme brutality, harassment, and often death were the outcomes. Homosexual males were considered to the lowest of the low of people in concentration camps.
They were deemed so sub-human that they were not allowed to be in the general prisoner population. They were isolated from perceived straight Jewish people and were not allowed to make alliances or friendships with others. The Nazis feared intermingling the gay men with the general prisoner population or even amongst each other. They were concerned the homosexuality “disease” would spread and infect everyone, including the guards, and even worse, the newly infected population would overturn the camps and eventually the country.
Those that wore the inverted pink triangle experienced the cruelest treatment in the concentration camp. The maltreatment included rape, having their testicles boiled off by water for punishment, and their testicles cut off if they wanted a chance at obtaining freedom. Of course, the Nazis never admitted these treatments were for punishment. Oh no, never. These acts were for “re-educating” gay men. Nazi’s believed homosexual men could learn how to be straight through intense labor, harassment, and torture. The inverted pink star homosexual men performed the most intense labor acts in the concentration camp community; after all, this was about “education and rehabilitation through labor.” Despite the rhetorical nonsense, the homosexual men were deeply emotionally and physically depleted.
At bedtime, it was regulated through hourly inspection, the homosexual men were to wear nightgowns and sleep with their fingers laced together. This rule was implemented to stop the deviant masturbation tendencies homosexual men were believed to partake in. Failing to sleep in a nightgown and with fingers laced at all times would result in the prisoner having cold water poured on him, outside, often in the snow, for several hours.
Other homosexual prisoners were used as sex toys and performed sexual acts on guards who threatened their lives if the prisoner chose not to perform. These prisoners were called “doll boys.” A doll boy was never to speak of what happened between him and the guard and would be killed immediately if the truth got out, or if another prisoner or guard witnessed the acts, even on accident. Other homosexual prisoners, including the doll boys, were often used as target practice for the guards, killing the gay men by the masses.
It is estimated that 65 percent of the homosexual prisoners in concentration camps died between 1933 and 1945.
The inverted pink triangle was to be worn in shame. The inverted pink triangle was designed to dehumanize homosexual males by highlighting to society their deviance and disgusting subhuman existence. The inverted pink triangle was designed to be an emotional scar, which would mark these men for the rest of their lives.
As usual, the LGBTQ community knows how to make the best out of a bad deal. The queer community resiliently flips negative symbols and jargon into shameless pride. The inverted pink triangle was adopted and flipped right-side-up by the modern LGBTQ community during the Gay Rights Movement in the 1970s. In the 1980s-90s the now correctly converted pink triangle was the emblem for life and death during the AIDS epidemic. Gay men were once again facing mass death while the judgmental world condemned their death as fate. The LGBTQ community used this symbol as a call to action across the country to find a cure and dismantle the blatant homophobia linked to the AIDS epidemic. The pink triangle became a lasting symbol for the AIDS advocacy movement.
The pink triangle continues to be a prominent image in the queer community. In the 1990s, LGBTQ propaganda signs bared the pink triangle to identify the area as being a “safe space.” Most recently, in 2018, Nike released a collection of Pride shoes that featured pink triangles. Society is becoming educated about queer culture, including acknowledging the unspeakable past.
Though the pink triangle has been reclaimed by the LGBTQ community as a symbol of empowerment and Pride, it is an everlasting reminder to never forget the past and to recognize the persecutions queer people continue to face around the world. Today, there is a memorial in Berlin, which represents an apology to the past and present LGBTQ community for the horrific mistreatment homosexual prisoners endured at concentration camps. In the United States, there is a memorial in San Francisco, located in the Castro, called Pink Triangle Park. This memorial proclaims to be the “first permanent, free-standing memorial in the U.S. to gay Holocaust victims.”
The last death of a prisoner forced to wear the inverted pink triangle during the Nazi era was recorded in Aug. 2011, with the death of Rudolf Brazda. He died at age 98. May his pain and the residual pain of others not be forevermore, but always remembered.
Until our next adventure, cheers, queers!
Interested in learning more about this topic? Check out these books:
The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps, by Heinz Heger
Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi Terror, by Pierre Seel
The Pink Triangle, by Richard Plant
Branded by the Pink Triangle, by Ken Setterington
