In Paris, a memorial for homosexual victims of deportation – Liberation

Acknowledgement. The deportation of homosexuals by Nazi Germany has long been a forgotten part of history, not to say put in silence. This Saturday, May 17, on the occasion of the international day to combat LGBTPHobies, France finally recognizes this historical truth. A memorial in tribute to the homosexual victims of the deportation was inaugurated today in Paris. « Recognizing is to say » it happened « and say » we don’t want it to happen again « , » said the socialist mayor of the capital, Anne Hidalgo, during this event.

This work is all the more « Strong that there are today opposite, powerful, extremely dangerous winds which would like to deny this diversity », she added. With this memorial, « There is the obligation to fight against negation or attenuation»».

Designed by the artist Jean-Luc Verna, the memorial-a huge black steel star of more than three tonnes-was installed in the gardens of the Port de l’Arsenal near the Place de la Bastille. « The black side of the star is the bodies that have been charred, it is mourning, it is also a shadow that tells us that things can happen again », explained the artist. « And the other face, the mirror is the present, with the colors of the passing time and the sky of Paris which changes as quickly as public opinion can turn around ».

Unlike Sydney, Barcelona or Amsterdam, the choice of a monument in the shape of a pink triangle – symbol sewn by the Nazis on the uniforms of homosexual prisoners in the camps – was not retained in order to include current victims.

« It is important that this memorial is not a simple symbolic tribute but an act of transmission, an act of public recognition and a space of questioning on past discrimination but also on those which persist today », insisted the president of the association « the forgotten of memory », Jean-Baptiste Trieu. This space owes us « Remember that rights are never definitively acquired, that hatred can reinvent themselves and that our responsibility is to stand together. »

According to estimates, between 5,000 and 15,000 people were deported to a European scale by the Nazi regime during the Second World War due to their homosexuality. For France, the figures for associations and historians vary between sixty and 200 deported homosexual people. It was not until 2001, with the official speech of Lionel Jospin, Prime Minister, then that in 2005, by Jacques Chirac, then president, for France to evoke these crimes. Which should not be forgotten.