Auschwitz Museum launches educational material on homosexuals imprisoned at the camp

The Auschwitz Museum has launched new educational material devoted to the fate of men who were imprisoned at the Nazi German camp for being homosexual

“The aim is to shed light on the history of one of the lesser-known victim groups of Auschwitz – men persecuted and sentenced under laws criminalising homosexuality,” says the institution, which is a Polish state museum.

Official records of the camp, which was run by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland from 1940 until 1945, show at least 77 people imprisoned for being homosexual. But Rainer Hoffschildt, a German researcher specialising in Nazi persecution of homosexials, estimates the true figure to be at least 136.

Article 175 of the German Penal Code, which was introduced in 1871 shortly after the unification of Germany and only repealed in 1994, criminalised “unnatural sexual acts” between males, specifying imprisonment and possible loss of civil rights as punishment.

The law was strengthened and strictly enforced by the Nazis after they came to power. Between 1933 and 1945, around 100,000 men suspected of homosexuality were arrested, with half of them sent to prison as a result.

In 1938, the Gestapo announced that men condemned for homosexuality could also be sent to concentration camps. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 50,000 were sent to such camps, where they were marked with a pink triangle, a symbol for gay prisoners.

“The persecution of homosexuals in the Third Reich, and especially their deportation to concentration camps, is undoubtedly one of the darkest chapters in the history of national socialism,” says the introduction to the Auschwitz Museum’s new online educational material.

The museum explains that the relatively small number of article 175 prisoners in Auschwitz stems from the fact that most such convicts were sent to camps located within the prewar borders of the Third Reich, in particular to KL Sachsenhausen, where one in six homosexual prisoners was held.

The museum estimates that out of the 136 such prisoners held in Auschwitz, at least 66 were killed, while 11 more perished after being transferred to other camps. “It is known that 32 survived, while the fate of 24 remains unknown – they likely did not survive the war,” the institution wrote.

“The SS authorities punished homosexuals very severely” in Auschwitz, a former prisoner, Stefan Buthnera, later testified. Some were subjected to castration, such as Kurt Brüssow, who is pictured at the top of this article. Below him is Rudolf von Mayer, who died in the camp aged 37.

“The vast majority of these [article 175] prisoners were of German nationality. At least 14 were of Jewish origin from the so-called Old Reich,” writes the museum, adding that one article 175 prisoner held in Auschwitz was likely of Polish origin.

“Although the number of homosexual prisoners was relatively small in the context of the overall number of Auschwitz victims, their fate reminds us of the diverse dimensions of Nazi terror and of our duty to remember all who fell victim to it,” the online lecture concludes.

Auschwitz was originally set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland in 1940 as a camp to house Polish “political” prisoners, before later becoming primarily a site for the murder of Jews.

At least 1.3 million victims were transported there, with at least 1.1 million of them killed at the camp. Around one million of those victims were Jews, most of whom were murdered in gas chambers immediately after their arrival. The second largest group of victims were ethnic Poles.

The camp was liberated by the advancing Soviet Red Army in January 1945 and, two years later, following the end of the war, a Polish state museum was established there.

The new online lesson – authored by Bohdan Piętka from the museum’s research center – as well as a podcast on the same topic narrated by Agnieszka Kita from the Auschwitz Memorial Archive are available online and free of charge in both English and Polish.

The materials are “not only about the Auschwitz camp itself”, said Agnieszka Juskowiak-Sawicka, head of e-learning at the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust (ICEAH).

They also give “the opportunity to learn about the broader social and legal context of the persecution of homosexuals in the Third Reich and its tragic consequences in the concentration camp system”.

Main image credit: Auschwitz Museum