A Time to Remember

[Nigel Gordon]

Today, the 27th of January is Holocaust Memorial Day, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex by the Red Army. I would ask you all to give some time today to remembering the horror that man and do unto man. In remembering I would ask you to remember those who went to the camps and are generally forgotten:

The Roma

The Sinti

The Jehovah Witnesses

The Lutheran Pastors who spoke against the Nazis

The Political Opposition

The others who did not fit into Hitlers idea of a perfect race.

And above all the Gay men and women who because of their sexuality were sentenced to Execution by Labour. They were given jobs to do which it was known would kill or seriously injure them.

Now is a time to remember.

[DesDownunder]

I remember the 1979 play, Bent which had a powerful message on the Nazi treatment of the Jews and homosexuals. So powerful was the message that, in a local production around 1980, one member of the production came out.

Bent was also made into a movie in 1997.

I think it is also worth remembering that when the prisoners were released from the concentration camps the homosexuals were not freed by the allies as it was considered that homosexuals had been incarcerated because they had broken civil law and were criminals, not prisoners of war. I am always surprised that this not made more public.

[Nigel Gordon]

I think it is also worth remembering that when the prisoners were released from the concentration camps the homosexuals were not freed by the allies as it was considered that homosexuals had been incarcerated because they had broken civil law and were criminals, not prisoners of war. I am always surprised that this not made more public.

That is something well worth remembering.