January 10, 2014
Flowers on Tel Aviv monument honoring gays persecuted by the Nazis
Tel Aviv joins Amsterdam, Berlin, San Francisco and Sydney to memorialize gay and lesbian Nazi Holocaust victims with a monument.
Tel Aviv has become the first Israeli city to unveil a memorial in honour of gay and lesbian victims of the Nazi Holocaust.
The monument in the centre of the city is designed around a pink triangle – the symbol gay prisoners were forced to wear in the concentration camps.
As many as 15,000 homosexuals were killed in the Nazi camps.
Writing on the monument in English, Hebrew and German reads: “In memory of those persecuted by the Nazi regime for their sexual orientation and gender identity.”
It is the first Holocaust memorial in Israel that deals with both Jewish and non-Jewish victims alike, according to local reports.
“In addition to the extermination of Europe’s Jews, the Nazis committed many atrocities, in an attempt to destroy anyone who was considered different,” said Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai.
The monument, unveiled on Friday, will stand outside the Municipal LGBT Community Centre in Tel Aviv’s Meir Park (Gan Meir).
Hitler’s Nazis branded homosexuality an aberration threatening their perception of Germans as the master race, and the Gestapo kept a special register of around 100,000 gay people.
תודה לך, ישראל. שלום!
From the Left 
This memorial is lovely!
Beautiful! A wonderful memorial for victims of a horrendous event. These men and women can’t be forgotten as the world spins forward. I thought the actual number was 500,000? Is this correct? BTW, happy to see you blogging again, Christopher.
Israel has always been sensitive about recognizing all the victims of the Nazi holocaust. When I was there in the 1970’s, there was much talk about the slaughter of Eastern European gypsies. As an American Jew, I was fairly ignorant about this. In any case, this memorial recognizing the slaughter of thousands of gay people by the Nazis is welcomed and appreciated. We must never forget.
Thank you, Israel.
As a Jew, you can’t live by Torah if you are ignorant of your people’s history. Why don’t you read the definition of the Holocaust (the word is capitalized), and slowly, so you can understand the full and entire meaning. Such Holocaust memorials function as a reminder to never forget the men and women who were victims of anti-Semitism. In Chicago, we have a large Jewish community but we have no such memorial. This is shameful.
So true, ChiTOM!
We must know our history and we can never forget or we are doomed to repeat our mistakes. In the case of Hitler and European fascism, this must never, ever repeat itself.
Sometime I think we’ve learned nothing from the past. From the horror of Darfur to Syria. Humans seem determined to destroy one another.
Trust me, when the U.S. finally withdraws the troops from Afghanistan, everything will go back to how it was before we invaded and occupied. These people have no interest in the 21st century and in democracy. Why can’t the west understand this?
This is a beautiful memorial. Thank you Israel for remembering.