“We saw barracks surrounded by a double circle of high fences… A torrent of blows awaited us. We were instantly overcome with terror.” With these words in his 1994 memoir, Pierre Seel—one of the few gay Holocaust survivors to publicly share his experience—described his arrival at the Schirmeck-Vorbrück concentration camp on May 13, 1941.
Eighty years later, while Holocaust remembrance has become an integral part of our civic duties, stories like those of Seel and other LGBTQ victims are often missing from that collective memory. This, however, is not the consequence of an accidental historical oversight. The truth is that for the queer survivors of Nazi oppression, 1945 did not bring about any kind of liberation; rather, it marked the beginning of a systematic process of persecution and willful suppression—one that would result in their erasure from the pages of popular history. (Time Magazine, 4.7.2021)
Alongside millions of Jews, members of the LGBTQ community were also targeted & persecuted by the Nazis. There was no place in the Nazi vision for members of the LGBTQ+ community as they did not enable growth of the Aryan population and were deemed unfit to be soldiers. Soon after Hitler took office, he banned all homosexual and lesbian organizations.
In May 1933, the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin was ransacked and most of its 12,000 books publicly burned. This marked the beginning of ridding Germany of any openly homosexual or lesbian culture. (National Holocaust Museum, 2025)
In observance of National Coming Out Day we will be screening a documentary that explores the LGBTQ community’s role in the Holocaust. Following the film, we will welcome guest speaker, Leah Rauch, Director of Education, Illinois Holocaust Museum, to share her knowledge around this historical event.
A casual reception will follow.
We recommend that children under the age of 15 be accompanied by an adult
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