Auschwitz's-The Pink Triangle-Never Forget

By Sabrina Samone

I’ve been labeled by some as a nerd and well, I agree. In fact, I’m fabulously in love with being a nerd. Some of my nerd trips are history and geography. How I love history. One thing I’ve noticed about history is that if you are hearing the news 300 years later its relevance is obviously not as strong. How did the Egyptians feel that day the Great Pyramid was complete? How was it to look at the Sphinx in it’s day. I’m sure it’s a lot grander than reading about it 3000 years later, but the beautiful fact remains…we are still reading about it.

What will it be like in 2945 when they acknowledge Auschwitz a thousand years from now? Hopefully they will remember it being one, if not the most disgustingly, horrible display of the depths of evil human beings were capable of. Hopefully they will remember the Pink Triangle.

Auschwitz was a network of German Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II. The concentration and extermination camps would be where countless torturous medical experiments would take place along with the hellish torture of millions of Jewish and TBLG people. Some of the experiments ranged from experiments on twins, bone, muscle and nerve transplanting, head injury experiments; and freezing experiments with the intent of discovering means to prevent and treat hypothermia. There were 360 to 400 experiments and 280 to 300 victims indicating some victims suffered more than one experiment. One study forced subjects to endure a tank of ice water for up to five hours.

When the war was over World leaders met in France to what is called the “Paris Peace Treaties”. Never again would the world stand by and permit genocide like the Nazi regime’s extermination of six million Jews during World War II. This also led to the creation of NATO.

In 2015, on January 10th the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality unveiled a monument to commemorate members of the TGLG community who were persecuted by the Nazi regime for their sexual orientation and gender identity.

Why is it important to remember? Today, nations like Russia, Uganda, and now Kazakhstan, among other small nations have adopted anti-lgbt laws that have spread hate, caused harm, and shown remarkable resemblance to the type of laws Hitler began issuing regarding the Jewish people shortly before World War II. Nazi anti-Jewish policy began functioning on two primary levels: legal measures to expel the Jews from society and strip them of their rights and property, while simultaneously engaging in campaigns of incitement, abuse, terror, and violence of varying proportions. There was one goal: to make the Jews leave Germany. On March 9, 1933, several weeks after Hitler assumed power, organized attacks on Jews broke out across Germany. Two weeks later, the Dachau concentration camp, situated near Munich opened. In the current case of Uganda, Russia, and Kazakhstan’s current anti TBLG laws the only difference is the establishment thus far, as far as we know, of concentration camps.

The world, NATO, and those nations that signed the Paris Peace Treaties should be appalled, but nothing is being done. They sit quietly just as they did when Hitler slowly came to power and began his rage. It wasn’t until January 27, 1945 that the entire world stood horrified at what had taken place.

*Would have been worn by someone who classified themselves or were falsely accused of being Gay, Bi, or Transgender*

The Nazi’s used a system of classifying their tortured human experiments:
Single triangles
Red triangle—political prisoners: social democrats, socialists, trade unionists, Freemasons, communists, and anarchists.
Green triangle— “professional criminals” (convicts, often working in the camps as Kapos).
Blue triangle—foreign forced laborers, emigrants.
Purple triangle—primarily Jehovah’s Witnesses (over 99%), and members of other small religious groups.
Pink triangle—primarily homosexual men, as well as sexual offenders including rapists, paedophiles and zoophiles.
Black triangle—people who were deemed “asocial elements” (asozial) and “work shy” (arbeitsscheu) including
- Roma (Gypsies), later assigned a brown triangle.
- The mentally ill
- Alcoholics
- Vagrants and beggars
- Pacifists
- Conscription resisters
- Prostitutes
- Drug addicts

Brown triangle—Roma (Gypsies), primarily men. Previously wore the black triangle with a “Z” notation (for Zigeuner > “Gypsy”) to the right of the triangle’s point.
Uninverted red triangle — an enemy POW (Sonderhäftling – “Special Detainee”), German spy or traitor (Aktionshäftling – “Activities Detainee”), or a military deserter or criminal (Wehrmacht Angehöriger – “Service Member”).
Double triangles
Double-triangle badges resembled two superimposed triangles forming a Star of David, a Jewish symbol.
Two superimposed yellow triangles or a six-pointed star, the “Yellow badge”— a Jew. The word Jude (“Jew”) was often inscribed in faux-Hebrew-looking letters inside the center of the badge.
P Letter “P” on a red triangle for Polish Christian Political Enemy (first in Auschwitz)
Red inverted triangle superimposed upon a yellow one—a Jewish political prisoner
Green inverted triangle upon a yellow one—a Jewish “habitual criminal”
Purple inverted triangle superimposed upon a yellow one—a Jehovah’s Witness of Jewish descent
Pink inverted triangle superimposed upon a yellow one—a Jewish “sexual offender”
Black inverted triangle superimposed upon a yellow one—”asocial” and “work shy” Jews
Voided black inverted triangle superimposed over a yellow triangle—a Jew convicted of miscegenation and labelled as a Rassenschänder (“race defiler”).
Yellow inverted triangle superimposed over a black triangle—an Aryan (woman) convicted of miscegenation and labelled as a Rassenschänder (“race defiler”).

The attack on Germany’s gay community began in 1933 when the Prussian Ministry of the Interior adopted a radically conservative social policy and authorized “Operation Clean Reich.” As a result of the ministry’s new orders, the gay bars and clubs that had been so plentiful around the turn of the century were closed or destroyed. Around the same time, gay prostitutes were detained and held in “protective custody” throughout Germany by the regime’s paramilitary forces.

We may assume the recent anti TBLG laws will eventually work themselves out, or someone will rise and take care of them but eastern Europe has proven within one lifetime (only 70 years ago), that they are willing and capable of eradicating an entire group of people.

Before World War ll there were no documented sex change operations, but it is safe to assume that many of the “thought to be” gay, effeminate men, and butch women were early transgender.

Transgender SRS history that can be traced back to World War ll

Magnus Hirschfield was an early German physician and sexologist. He is considered the first outspoken LGBT activist. He was associated with the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, where they were studying the way to change sex, until it was closed down by the Nazi Party. It was Magnus Hirschfeld who coined the term transexualism, identifying the clinical category which his colleague Harry Benjamin would later develop in the United States and a standard by which all transitioning transgender persons follow to this day.

We owe it not only to ourselves to remember for the sake of the future Trans culture, but we also as humans owe it to ourselves to remember the Pink Triangle so that no nation disregards human life as did the Nazi’s.