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General News Gays were executed in the holocaust?!

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by AlexJames, Apr 24, 2017.

  1. AlexJames

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    Its a real statement to our education system that i learned this on twitter, not in school growing up. The link is below. As a kid it was always phrased in the classroom and in textbooks like it was just a non-Jew here and there that was killed - gays, political prisoners, people who didn't meet their ideology pretty much. By the numbers perhaps this was accurate...but according to the article 55,000 gay men and women were executed and many more imprisoned. And now its happening in Chechneya. Why did we never learn this in school?! Or is it just me? If this information is accurate, they had a whole system and a whole bunch of other prisoners! I don't mean to diminish the suffering of the Jewish people or the Jews who died... Even if it may have been mostly aimed at the Jews, I just feel like by not learning about the non-Jews in school it diminishes their suffering and sacrifice. These things are important to learn about, aren't they? Learn so history doesn't repeat itself and all that.

    The Gay Holocaust - we must NEVER forget.
     
  2. Lexa

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    I learned it in school but then I live in Belgium, next to Germany of course. It is mentioned in the mini-series When We Rise also (but not the numbers I think?). Someone says we have a symbol, a pink triangle, and someone else says, no, we can't use that (reference to nazi-germany) and as a consequence the rainbow flag was invented.
     
  3. Jellal

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    The Jews were the largest single group persecuted during the holocaust but if I understand correctly they were not the majority of people who died in the camps, if you combine the other groups they outnumber them. But anyway yes the point of the holocaust was to purge anyone that didn't fit Nazi Germany's ideals of who belonged, so that meant doing away with all the undesirables. I think a big reason the Jews were targeted is that Hitler and people who thought like him saw them as being responsible for all kinds of "social degeneracy" that enabled other undesirable ethnic minorities to spread.

    I do think that in some ways the holocaust has been widely promoted as a very specific Jewish cultural experience when that was not the reality. For more on this, I suggest reading the following link.

    Confessions of a Holocaust Denier
     
  4. Lexa

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    Hitler wanted to create a "better race" and everyone who didn't meet his standards was in trouble, definitely not only the Jews. Also people with disabilities for example...
     
  5. OGS

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    The pink triangle that is often used as a gay rights symbol was how gay men were marked in the camps. Upon the liberation of the camps many who wore it were simply re-imprisoned by the German government.
     
  6. greatwhale

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    Just for the record, the number of Jewish victims of the holocaust outnumbered all the others combined. I find it distasteful to compare such horrific facts, they boggle the mind. Each and every victim of these atrocities, whether Jewish or not, suffered greatly and did not deserve this treatment.

    It is not for nothing that Jews are particularly sensitive to this atrocity. It is certainly not a Jewish "cultural experience", it is a national trauma of the highest order. I do however agree in one sense with the above, it is not only a specific Jewish trauma, but it seems that only the Jews have integrated this horror into their daily discourse and with their call of "Never again!". It should have been seen right after the war as a human trauma, as a disturbing human tragedy, as an indictment of all humanity.

    Homosexuals were very badly treated and murdered, but their persecution continued after the war was over, with continuing prison sentences well after the camps were liberated for pretty much everyone else. We should be hollering just as loudly: "Never again!...especially these days with the resurgence of bigotry and racism.
     
  7. Nordland

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    Any people that the nazi's deemed "Untermenschen" (subhuman) or enemies of the state could be sent to concentration camps. Remember there is a difference between concentration and death camps. The first concentration camps were set up for political prisoners and the first people who were executed under the nazi regime were the disabled. But yes, the list of "Undesirables" would have included homosexuals, people who as transgender, gypsies, slavs, communists, socialists, partisans, members of the resistance, etc.
     
  8. anthracite

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    Probably because you're american. As a german, we had that in school, the different signs of prisoners even. I think each country focuses on their own history with some international important aspects (in case of germany things like american civil war, french revolution, cold war). So you have less time for german faults. Most of the victims were jews so the other ones are forgotten.

    Even here. Brave resistants died in death camps like Dachau and Auschwitz, unheard names. We don't talk about them out of shame. Because we think it might defend the general population or defending the holocaust. It is a crime to defend or deny holocaust, which can let you end in prison.

    And awkward, you forgot the disabled ones, both physically and mentally disabled.

    But anyone could be sent there. Let me tell you a story my grandma told me.
    They had a neighbor, a friendly guy. But once they said he had a fight with a colleague. The colleague said he was a messy worker and that he was asocial. A bit later uniformed men came. My grandma was scared, she thought they were coming for her dad. But they came for the neighbor. He was taken away and never seen again.
     
  9. Benway

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    Cite your source for that.

    12 million people died in the holocaust, six million were Jews. I guess when you look at it like that, yes, they outnumber the other minority groups that were exterminated, but the Jewish community has a nasty habit of making the holocaust all about themselves and completely ignoring the other six million gays, gypsies, cripples and mentally ill who were eradicated during one of history's darkest hours. This dogma is why in American schools we only learn about the Jews dying in the holocaust, not the other 50%.

    Anybody who knows me here knows I'm not the biggest fan of the Jews, as I think they are the original authors of homophobia. Leviticus is not the words of God but the words of rabbis trying to find loopholes in the Ten Commandments. 1 Corinthians 6:9 are the words of Saul/Paul, who called himself a "Jew's Jew." I'm also not keen on mandatory penile mutilation for those who are too young to make a decision as to whether that's something they want or need.

    But I digress. I haven't slept in awhile and am in a weird place.
     
  10. anthracite

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    Well the main target were the jews. No operation was planned as precisely as the final solution.

    But the majority that uses the holocaust nowadays are not the jews. It's mostly non-jewish german vs non-jewish german/ Erdogan vs europe currently.
     
  11. Reciprocal

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    I'm in the UK. We learned about the Holocaust a couple of years ago. We were told about all the different groups that were targeted: Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, communists; anyone Hitler and the Nazis took issue with. I'm actually very surprised that you only just found this out. Jews were the main target and suffered the most casualties, but every discussion of the Holocaust seems to have at least a side note about the other people killed.
     
  12. Jellal

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    As for me, I just used the Wikipedia chart. Totaling all Jews at 42% of holocaust victims.
     
  13. SomeUsername

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    I'm honestly surprised my school actually told us that gay people were killed in the Holocaust. The only other times I remember homosexuality being brought up in the classroom were our class debates over gay marriage and my sex ed teacher grudgingly telling us that "not only homosexuals can contract HIV."
     
  14. AlexJames

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    Well i mean we were told that it was a whole variety of people that were targetted...but with the movies, the educational videos and the textbooks this fact was glossed over, if that makes sense. Like a side comment, i guess. So i never knew about the colored prisoner type identification system chart from the article, for example. All i'd ever heard of were the gold stars that symbolized the Jews. I knew Hitler wanted to make an ideal race but so much is emphasized regarding his persecution of the Jews, that at least in my school district the persecution of pretty much everyone else was a mere sidenote. So i guess it lost the bigger picture, if that makes sense.
     
    #14 AlexJames, Apr 24, 2017
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  15. DoriaN

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    'Cite your source for that'.

    It's a very large allegation that the Pentateuch was not the word of God, especially seeing as they are divinely inspired with prophetic meaning that applies to the rest of the Tanakh and Bible.

    It's true that modern rabbinic Judaism is not the same as Biblical Judaism, but to say Biblical Judaism is not of the commandment of God is very far reaching.


    As for the topic itself.

    Yes, many groups were killed. Very seldom is mentioned the other holocausts and ongoing 'holocausts' that take place in the world (Not to mention the slavery). If we have one largescale event so very well documented and world shaking as with the Jews, yet there are deniers, how much lesser known are all the other atrocities that take place?

    It's very saddening, and even worse is that schools seldom actually teach the truth or full truth.
     
    #15 DoriaN, Apr 24, 2017
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  16. gravechild

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    Not just gay people, but communists, Jehova's Witnesses, the disabled, "social deviants", Roma, Slavs, mixed-race Germans, and a host of others.
     
  17. kibou97

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    Yeah, I wasn't really aware of how many different groups of people Hitler killed until I took a specialized class in High School focusing on the Holocaust.
     
  18. KyleD

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    The main aim of the Holocaust (Final Solution) was to exterminate the Jews.

    Poland lost 90% of their Jewish population during the Holocaust. Hitler killed 3.3 million of the 3.6 million Jews living in Poland.

    Eastern Europe's Jewish population dropped from 4.7 million to 859,000 after the Holocaust.

    Europe had a population of 9.5 million Jews before the Holocaust. Since then 8 million have either been killed, fled or emigrated (mostly to the U.S) leaving a mere 1.4 million Jews in Europe (a figure which is rapidly declining).

    The legacy of the Holocaust in very real.
     
    #18 KyleD, Apr 24, 2017
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2017
  19. PlantSoul

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    I learned about gay concentration camp prisoners outside of school. Education on Homosexuality in schools is such a controversial topic in our society that I can't see it being taught anytime soon without uproar. As for the gay concentration camp prisoners, the Nazi's made them wear a pink upside down triangle on their clothing. Some people now don't like that symbol being used for gays due to its origins. I remember when Lady Gaga's video for 'Born This Way' came out, hearing there were some gay men who were very upset with her for the same reason because she used this symbol in her video. It's been a long time, but I think it's the part when she is dancing with Rick Genest aka 'Zombie Boy'. There are books about and by gay concentration camp prisoners/survivors. I can't seem to successfully paste to link it up in this comment.

    ---------- Post added 25th Apr 2017 at 02:21 AM ----------

    Best Gay Holocaust Survivor Books (8 books)

    ^Here it is. I kept hitting the wrong button (I'm on mobile).

    ---------- Post added 25th Apr 2017 at 02:29 AM ----------

    Anti-Semitism is has been on the rise in Europe. Jews who have learned from history have been leaving. I read two articles back awhile ago about Jews in France. In one, the girls in a Jewish family felt pressured to keep their beliefs a secret and in another, the Jews were leaving France for Canada and England.
     
    #19 PlantSoul, Apr 24, 2017
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2017
  20. mnguy

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    I don't remember if gay people were mentioned in school whenever it was that we learned about the Holocaust. I knew about it before reading this, but don't remember where I first learned it. It should definitely be part of the lesson in schools, but I'm not surprised that some schools would ignore us. They seem to think that knowing we exist will cause kids to become gay or something really irrational like that so they try to ban any mention of anything LGBT. They definitely don't want anyone having empathy for all the ways we've been tormented throughout history for no valid reason.