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."
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. Similar monuments in their memory have been erected in Amsterdam, Berlin, San Francisco and Sydney.
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 is in the form of a pink triangle - a symbol that gay prisoners were forced to wear. "This monument reminds us all how important it is for us to respect every human being," he said.
Tel Aviv's Gan Meir
The monument, unveiled on January 10, 2014, stands outside the Municipal LGBT Community Centre in Tel Aviv's Meir Park (Gan Meir). The memorial consists of three triangles: One is concrete, and on it appears a explanation of the persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust; the second is an upside-down triangle painted pink (indicative of the symbol the Nazis forced homosexuals to wear); and the third triangle faces the other two and consists of three pink benches. Local attorney and LGBTQ rights activist Eran Lev was the driving force behind the creation of the city-funded memorial, and planned by landscape architect Prof. Yael Moriah, who in recent year has overseen the renovation of Gan Meir park. "It's important to me that people understand that persecution of gay people was not the usual story of the Holocaust that we know from the final solution, and from the Wansee Conference," said Lev. "This is a different story, more modest, but still an important one." "It's important that people in Israel know that the Nazis persecuted others as well, not because they were Jews, but because they were gay," he said. Moshe Zimmermann, the memorial project's historical adviser and a professor at Hebrew University, contributed the additional text which reads: "According to Nazi ideology, homosexuality was considered harmful to 'public health.' The Gestapo had a special unit to fight homosexuals and the 'Center for the Fighting of Homosexuality and Abortions' kept a secret file on about 100,000 homosexuals."
People Lay Flowers at the Memorial to the Thousands of Gay People
Killed by the Nazis During WWII
German Ambassador Andreas Michaelis said: "It is important that we put up monuments and name streets, in order to remember things that happened in the past. But they must be first and foremost reminders for the future." The 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. Thousands were sent to Nazi concentration camps in the 1930s and 1940s.
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