The persecution and murder of Jews during World War II is a difficult, but well documented part of history. But, what isn’t as well known is what happened to some other minority groups.
Professor Samuel Torvend, with Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, is studying Nazi Germany’s persecution of sexual minorities, especially gay men. The researcher, who’s speaking on the South Coast Thursday night, says it’s a largely forgotten part of history.
Torvend says researchers have only been studying what happened to gays under the Nazi regime what occurred for the last 15 to 20 years. He says no one is sure how many people were persecuted by the Nazis just because of their sexual orientation, but its believed that at least 100,000 gays died.
The researchers say the Nazis, who were obsessed with the concept of racial purity, took pre-existing prejudice and moved it to a monstrous extreme. One of the little remembered facts is that while Jews were forced to wear yellow stars by the Nazis to identify them, gays were required to wear identifying pink triangles.
Torvend is studying the story of a man, Robert Oelberman, who was among those persecuted. It started in the mid-1920’s, when he and his twin brother Karl joined a youth group which was accepting of homosexual relationships.
When the Nazis came to power, they ordered that all youth groups except for those under the Hitler Youth umbrella be dissolved. They continued to meet secretly. Oelberman was finally arrested, and after refusing to spy on his friends, would spend five years in concentration camps before dying in Dachau.
While the end of World War II ended the persecution of most of those who had survived the concentration camps, ironically, it continued for many of the gays who had survived the Nazis. Same sex relationships were still technically illegal under German law, and some of the gay concentration camp survivors facing criminal charges were forced to continue serving their sentences under the new German civilian government.
It wasn’t until 2002 that the German government issued an official apology to the same-sex community for what had happened before, and during World War II to their community.
Torvend will speak about the Nazi persecution of gays in a free event at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks Thursday. The 7 p.m. event at Overton Hall is free, and open to the public. CLU is the parent of KCLU Radio.
