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There had been debate for years at the national level about whether to add lesbian sexuality to S. 175, which was the section of Nazi law used to persecute gay men.  By 1940, homophobia reached such hysteric levels that women were arrested and sent to concentration camps on the slightest suspicion of being a lesbian.

At the camps, most convicted lesbians were forced to spend six months to a year working in the camp brothel serving the male prisoners.  Along with other anti-social women, many lesbians were castrated in an attempt to moderate their sexuality or were subjected to forced hormone treatments.  Many black triangle prisoners met with other forms of torture. Execution was a common fate, and countless others committed suicide, died of malnutrition, or succumbed to diseases such as typhus.

Even as the LGBT community prepares to celebrate some important victories this June, Pride season is also an occasion to remember crimes past.  Keeping the black triangle within our symbolic world is a way not to forget the crimes committed against women, particularly lesbians, during the Nazi regime.

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