The Truth Will Set You Free

There are times you learn things you wish you had never known. But you cannot avoid the truth, at least you should not. How does that cliché’ go? “The truth will set you free?” It may, but before it does it may well sadden the hell out of you.

My church, First Congregational United Church of Christ, is using for its Wednesday night Lenten services a worship series developed by an artist named Mary Button. Ms. Button has used the fourteen stations of the cross to illustrate the suffering not only of Jesus during his trial and crucifixion, but of LGBT people throughout their struggle for equality. LGBT is an acronym for lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender people.

Wednesday the series took us back to World War II and the concentration camps established by Germany’s then Nazi government, and the contragenics imprisoned and killed there. Contragencis is a term coined by linguist Richard J. Deppe to encompass all groups persecuted under the Nazis. When we think of concentration camps we think of the Jews, but in reality many other groups were persecuted and killed. Among them were homosexuals, anti-fascists, the disabled, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, nonconforming clergymen, Freemasons, Polish and Russian prisoners of war and huge numbers of Polish and Hungarian Nationals. I knew that vaguely, but was largely unaware of the plight of gay people during the holocaust.

Homosexuals were forced to identify themselves by wearing the pink triangle. The Nazis created a complicated system of identifying badges that persecuted groups wore, which dehumanized them and made their identity categorical rather than individual. The most famous identifying badge is the yellow star of David signifying Jewish heritage. Homosexuals were forced to wear the pink triangle. Admittedly the number of homosexuals and other groups persecuted during Nazi rule is small compared to the Jews. Between 1933 and 1945, under Nazi rule, it is estimated that around 100,000 individuals were arrested for the crime of homosexuality. How many homosexuals ended up in concentration camps is unknown.

The suffering in concentration camps for all groups there is nearly unimaginable. For many, entering the gates of that hell meant quick death. The old, the young, the lame, those unable to work were simply killed, their bodies summarily disposed. All those who survived that first cut were then worked, starved, beaten, and humiliated, many dying from the experience. Everyone suffered. But at an individual level the suffering homosexuals went through is as profound and extreme as anyone could have suffered. Those imprisoned in concentration camps for homosexuality were often subject to particularly brutal abuse and treatment because of how despised homosexuality and homosexuals were; there are stories of men being forced to watch their lovers eaten alive by guard dogs; torture for homosexuals was routine and extreme; the majority of homosexuals sent to concentration camps would not survive.

For those that did survive, those wearing badges of every category, liberation finally came. In 1944,as the German army was being defeated throughout the Third Reich and as the Allies approached many camps were evacuated. On July 24th, 1944, the Soviet Red Army arrived at the Maidanek camp and liberated those inside. Other camps soon followed with the arrival of various Allied troops, although the largest of the death camps - Auschwitz - was not liberated until January 27th 1945. World War II ended on May 7th, 1945, when Nazi Germany finally surrendered to the Allied forces.

Even after hearing of the horror of Nazi concentration camps again, what I learned next saddens me most. For the homosexuals that survived, it is difficult to call them lucky, many continued to be imprisoned, their Allied liberators becoming their latest jailers. As much as the Nazis and the Allies were enemies, they agreed on the criminality of homosexuality and the need to deny them their freedom based on their sexuality. And so the end of the war offered no relief from persecution and imprisonment. Liberation from Auschwitz and Buchenwald only resulted in relocation to different prisons. Post Nazi, post-war Germany was as unwelcome, unfriendly and as dangerous a place as before for homosexuals. Their time in the concentration camp was merely credited to the outlandish sentences handed down by Nazi tribunals.

After the camps were liberated and the plight of the Jewish victims acknowledged worldwide, the persecution of homosexuals continued throughout post-war Germany. While many survivors were rebuilding their lives and families initially in displaced persons camps, homosexuals faced further persecution and social exclusion. While many victims would receive reparations, assistance after the war, state pensions, and other measures aimed at providing them a means to recover from what they'd been subjected to at the hands of the Nazis, this was not true for the gay and lesbian concentration camp survivors. Homosexuals remained deviants in the eyes of post-war society.

In the post-war years many homosexuals tried to restart their lives; some entered into marriage; others struggled to find anonymity in their communities; some even entered the armed forces. The stigma of the pink triangle was clearly a heavy burden and, without the support and contact of gay friends who were either in hiding or dead themselves, many survivors lived with the silent 'shame' of their experience in secret.

In the 1945 Nuremberg war crime trials no mention was ever made of crimes against homosexuals. No SS official was ever tried for specific atrocities against pink triangle prisoners. Many of the known SS doctors who had performed operations on homosexuals, were never brought to account for their actions. One of the most notorious SS doctors was Carl Peter Vaernet who performed numerous experiments on pink triangle inmates at the Buchenwald and Neuengamme camps. He was never tried for his crimes and escaped to South America where he died a free man in 1965.

What many don't know is that Nazi-era laws criminalizing homosexuality were not fully and finally repealed in Germany until 1994 (though some liberalization of the laws occurred in both West and East Germany prior to that). Gay men were still considered criminals for their homosexuality when the war ended, and would still be considered as such for many, many years following the conclusion of the war. Germany was not alone in this stance. While watching the movie “The Imitation Game” I learned that Britain charged Alan Turing with indecency and demanded he undergo chemical castration, taking a drug which made sex impossible, in order to avoid prison. He died of suicide two years later.

Alan Turing was a brilliant gay mathematician who invented the “Turing Machine” which broke the code devised by Nazi Germany embodied in the Enigma machine. His invention is acknowledged as the predecessor of our modern day computer. Many believe his machine was the single biggest factor in the Allies winning the war. Ironically he was driven to his self imposed death by the very government he helped save.

LGBT people, here and around the world, have suffered and continue to suffer discrimination because of who they are. You can imagine this. If you are a straight person imagine that a basic impulse that is part of both your body and your mind, that you discovered and felt always since you can remember, as normal and as much a part of you as hunger, was deemed criminal. This drive within you, that brings you joy, elation, satisfaction, and release is now seen by others as deviant, dangerous, taboo. What if you were fired or not hired because your employer discovered the truth about your sexuality? What is you were unable to find housing? What if you were bullied and despised by your peers? What would you do?

And how would you feel? How would you feel if you were a survivor of a concentration camp, standing among the other prisoners, striped uniforms hanging off you, walking skeletons every one, and you realized that the other prisoners would go free and be helped to wholeness while you, because of who and how you love, would continue to be denied liberty? After you and the others went through the same living hell only you, and others like you, would continue to be denied their freedom. You hadn’t suffered enough. Imagine it.

Do you think the advancement of rights being gained by the LGBT community is not a matter of civil rights? Think again. It is a struggle for equality. Just as African Americas marched across the Edmund Pettus bridge fifty years ago to gain their dignity as equal human beings gay people struggle today. I believe we are about to make same sex marriage a right nationwide as we should. Will that signal the end of discrimination against the LGBT community. No it won’t. Just as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 did not end discrimination against African Americans, marriage equality is but a step along the way.

We are blessed however with a younger generation that is much more accepting of LGBT persons. I can imagine a day when the stigma of being gay is no more. But we aren’t there yet. The struggle for equality continues. If you’re part of my generation and you are reading this, find ways to be part of the solution.

One of the ways we change our attitudes is through education. If you would like to learn more about the struggle for LGBT equality you can join us at church during the remaining Wednesdays of Lent for soup at 6:15 and a short service at 7:00. You can see Mary Button’s art and learn the history of this struggle for yourself. We’re on the corner of Columbus and Jackson in Ottawa. You are welcome there.


I borrowed heavily from other sources to write this post.
Further reading:
www.marybutton.com
http://www.hardenet.com/homocaust...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragraph 175