During its annual Holocaust memorial commemorations, the German parliament will focus on and discuss the victims persecuted and died for their sexuality under Nazi authority for the first time.
Since 1996, Germany has commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day by concentrating on the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Though there have been cases where tributes have been paid to homosexual and lesbian people who were killed by Adolf Hitler. In the first event, for example, then-President Roman Herzog paid tribute to the LGBTQ community.
For decades, German activists have tried to create a formal celebration to remember the LGBTQ victims of the Nazi era. According to them, the government’s most recent initiatives are an essential symbol of acknowledgment.
“Today’s hour of remembrances focuses on a group of victims who had to fight for a long time to achieve recognition: people who were persecuted by the National Socialists because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity,” Baerbel Bas, president of the Bundestag lower house, said on Friday during the opening ceremony marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, according to CNN.
Dani Dayan, chairman of Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, hailed the move and stated that it will assist to widen Germany’s remembrance culture.
“The Holocaust was an onslaught against humanity: LGBTQ individuals, Roma and Sinti, mentally disabled persons, but especially against the Jewish people,” he told AFP on a visit to Berlin this week.
“We respect and we honor all the victims.”
Josef Schuster, the leader of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, agreed with him, saying that while Jews were the majority of Holocaust victims, “they weren’t the only ones.”