The Bundestag remembers queer Nazi victims for the first time
For the first time, the Bundestag put the queer victims of the Nazis at the centre of Holocaust Remembrance Day. A late sign.
On 27 January 2023, a group that had long been overlooked was at the centre of attention in the German Bundestag for the first time. That day, the annual commemoration of the victims of National Socialism was dedicated to those who had been persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The date is no coincidence. On 27 January 1945, the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz camp, and since the nineties the day has been an official day of remembrance in Germany. Until then, queer victims had at most featured on the margins of these ceremonies. The author and historian Lutz van Dijk had campaigned for this for years and finally launched a petition, supported by survivors, researchers and representatives of other victim groups. Only after the change of government did Bundestag President Bärbel Bas agree.
The main speech was given by the Dutch Holocaust survivor Rozette Kats, who had survived as a Jewish child in hiding. Afterwards, Maren Kroymann and Jannik Schümann read from two life stories. Mary Pünjer, a lesbian Jewish woman from Hamburg, was arrested as "asocial", deported to Ravensbrück and murdered in 1942 at the Bernburg killing centre. Karl Gorath survived several camps, including Auschwitz. After the war, the same judge convicted him again.
It was precisely this point that gave the day its edge. In the Federal Republic, Paragraph 175 remained in force until 1969 in the version tightened by the Nazis. Klaus Schirdewahn, who had been convicted in 1964 at the age of seventeen, reminded the chamber of this at the end. The state only quashed the convictions from the Nazi era in 2002, and those from the post-war period not until 2017.
For many in the community, the hour in the plenary chamber was more than a gesture. It was the late recognition that the pink triangle is part of this country's history.