In a first, German parliament spotlights Nazis’ LGBTQ victims

Campaigners worked for two decades to establish an official ceremony for LGBTQ victims of the Nazis, saying their experience had long been forgotten

Historians say between 3,000 and 10,000 gay men died and many were castrated or subjected to horrific ‘medical’ experiments during Germany’s Nazi rule

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Germany is highlighting the historic plight of gay people under the Nazi regieme for the first time. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 2:22am, 28 Jan 2023Updated: 3:21am, 28 Jan 2023

The German parliament will for the first time on Friday focus its annual Holocaust memorial commemorations on people persecuted and killed for their sexual or gender identity.

Campaigners worked for two decades to establish an official ceremony for LGBTQ victims of the Nazis, saying their experience had long been forgotten or marginalised.

“This group is important to me because it still suffers from discrimination and hostility,” Baerbel Bas, president of the Bundestag lower house, said.

Germany has officially marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day – the anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation – since 1996 with a solemn ceremony at the Bundestag and commemorations across the country.

The site of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. Photo: Reuters/File

The event traditionally focuses on the Holocaust’s six million Jewish victims, although, at the first ceremony, then president Roman Herzog did also pay tribute to gay men and lesbians murdered under Adolf Hitler.