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The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps

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A sodomy law had been on the German law books since 1871, a law known simply as Paragraph 175. Only a few people were ever sentenced under this obscure law until June of 1935 when, after the rise of Hitler and Nazism, the Nuremberg laws were enacted and the consequences of Paragraph 175 strengthened. Where once before, you had to be caught in the act of same sex relations, now simply receiving a letter or the spreading of idle gossip would have you sent to a concentration camp.

"The Men with the Pink Triangle" is one anonymous man's account of the harshness and cruelty faced by gay men at the hands of the SS and the ruling Nazi party, as well as by the other prisoners -- criminals, politicals, emigrants -- who viewed "filthy queers" as lower than the rest of them. They were distinguished by the large, pink triangles sown onto their prison outfits, making them easy targets for taunts and punishments. Also, homosexuals labored through the worst of the work details and "volunteered" for medical experimentation, which usually resulted in their deaths.

Some advantages also appeared for gay men. The "Capos" who were in charge of the prisoner barracks, often made lovers of some of the prisoners, giving them some protection and better rations and clothing. As is says in the book: "Homosexual behavior between two 'normal' men is considered an emergency outlet, while the same thing between two gay men, who both feel deeply for one another, is something 'filthy' and repulsive." The anonymous man used this to his advantage and survived the camps and the threat of being sent to the front lines.

Ths is a moving and powerful story about survival and about the right to be who you are, during one of the darkest times in world history. Highly recommended.

A tremendously moving and easy to read book, The Men With the Pink Triangle provides the reader with not only descriptions of the horrific treatment suffered by gays in the Nazi camps, but also provides insight into the intra-camp politics among the prisoners. The anonymous narrator provides details on how the "capos" and the criminal prisoners operated, and how one could "survive" one's incarceration as long as one was willing to accept the camp heirarchy.

But by far, the descriptions of the brutality of the SS troops in the camps is the most rivitting. The terse language of the narrative increases the decriptions' impact. There's no intellectualizing this abuse in this tome. Unfortunately, we need more books like this one. But I'm afraid many of those gays who survived the camps are still unwilling to speak, and that is largely because of how they were treated after the camps were "liberated." The Nazis were brutal in their treatment, but you knew where they stood because the Nazis didn't hide their contempt. Bureaucrats today, however, are much more sinister.

I figure we teach school kids about the Jews suffering in the Holocaust, and the blacks struggle for Civil Rights. It would make sense that kids learn the dangers of homophobic bigotry, by reading this book. It will open your eyes! The same anti-gay stereotypes then, are the same ones now.

This book is about a gay man who survived the Pink Triangle, and took him over 25 years to tell his story, as their were still many anti-gay laws on the books there. This man never wanted any public or economic gains from telling his story. In fact the Nazis had more contempt for the gays than they did the 'inferior racial groups' they persecuted.

Heinz Heger's book has become the definitive story of life as a 'pink triangle' in a concentration camp. Sadly this is partly because the Nazi's deliberate policy of murder of this group ensured few survived and also due to the understandable fear of those who did survive to tell their story. If you have read Primo Levi you should read this. It is more immediate than Levi's writings, and there is less analysis, making it all the more horrifying. He simply tells what happened, mentioning only his amazement at the hypocrisy and cruelty exhibited by his German captors. The only other book that comes near to it is 'Liberation Was For Others', by Pierre Seel, an autobiographical tale of life in Schirmeck-Vorbruch. Seel continues his story to the post-war period, pointing out that for homosexuals suffering did not end in 1945.

Heinz Hegel's thin volume brims with the haunting facts surrounding the persecution of gays under Nazi Germany's Section 175 ruling against homosexuality. Hegel provides the shocking historical context which few of us were taught in school, that people even suspected of same gender love relationships were tortured and killed by the Nazi regime in concentration camps in the 1930s and 40s.

This is a stirring testament of survival against all odds, peppered with humor, not overbearing in tone or content. It is also a fascinating quick read.

While the reader can celebrate the fact that Hegel survived imprisonment in Nazi camps from '39-45, he closes the book by reminding us that "the progress of humanity" has passed by the minority to which he belonged. As of 1970, when Hegel's book was written, it was still illegal for people of the same gender to form love relationships in his native Austria. Furthermore, gays remain the only minority persecuted in Nazi camps omitted from remuneration by the German government.

Even more shocking is the fact that the Nazis' desire to "cure" homosexuality, now balked at and dismissed by any credible mental health professional, is advocated in this day and age in the personage of the "shock jock," physiologist Laura Schlessinger (aka "Dr. Laura"). You would think that Ms. Schlessinger, an orthodox Jew, would learn from history.

Perhaps others will through Hegel's masterpiece.

This memoir of a man who was imprisoned in concentration camps simply because of his sexual orientation may be slim - only about 120 pages - but it packs a punch. The man's tale, first told in 1971 to Heinz Heger, is straightforward and to the point, addressing a forgotten group of people who were persecuted by the Nazis - and later, by those who rose to power after the Nazis were defeated.

This is a fascinating look into a group that has so often been ignored by Holocaust historians. There are so few books that address the experiences of the homosexual concentration camp victims, and yet there were thousands of these "pink triangle" men in the camps. This is the only memoir I've ever read dealing with that group, and I found it mesmerizing.

The "pink triangle" men were despised by their fellow prisoners; even the murderers and thieves viewed themselves as "morally superior" to the "degenerates" who had violated Paragraph 175 (the law against homosexuality). The man was repeatedly insulted and abused for his orientation (at one point being sexually assaulted by fellow prisoners on the way to a concentration camp). And this memoir adds a new dimension to concentration camp life, addressing sexuality and its fluidity in trying circumstances (many of the capos and other prisoners in positions in authority had male lovers, although they'd vehemently deny that they were gay).

Of course, the man's struggle for equality didn't end once liberation came. He was still haunted by what he had witnessed and endured. His father had committed suicide in despair after his arrest. His promising career in academia had been permanently stalled by the six years he spent imprisoned. And, of course, gays were still acceptable targets to hate after the war; homosexuality wasn't even legal until 1971 in the man's native Austria.

At the time this book was published, the man (who chose to remain anonymous here) still had received no remuneration from the German government by being imprisoned during the Holocaust. And why? Because he was homosexual, a "criminal" prisoner, and therefore entitled to nothing. Wow. I wonder if any gay prisoners received monetary payments for the suffering that they endured.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the Holocaust and/or gay history. It's a really remarkable slice of history, and it's a shame that there are so few memoirs available from "non-traditional" Holocaust victims.

I have to admit that though I have been well-acquianted with the Holocaust, I have not really delved into the persecution of gays by the Nazis. When I came across this book in my local library, I knew it was time to educate myself about the plight of this minority group that also suffered greatly under Hitler's Third Reich. "The Men with the Pink Triangle" is the true life account of a gay inmate of a German concentration camp who survived six years in Sachsenhausen and Flossenburg, from 1939-1945. However, he chose to remain anonymous due to the ongoing persecution of gays in his native Austria at the time the story was told, circa 1971-72.

Though this is a thin volume, the horrors inflicted upon this victim and his fellow concentration camp inmates is truly horrific - the Nazis were intent on dehumanising these people - inflicting all sorts of torture, from heavy manual labor that was meaningless [shovelling snow with bare hands and moving it from one pile to the other with no purpose], the sadistic beatings inflicted on inmates [even a priest was not immune from this], and other atrocities.

The book is also immensely valuable as it portrays the inner workings of the political hierarchy in these camps and how inmates stood a better chance of surviving if they played the 'game' correctly. For example, the narrator tells the story of the Polish 'dolly-boys' who allowed themselves to be used by high-ranking camp dignitaries in order to get more rations and better work conditions. The narrator himself admits to forming such 'attachments' in order to survive. The narrator plays the game so well, he even gets the promoted to the coveted position of Capo [sort of like a supervisor/foreman].

There is even an account of the SS trying to 'cure' homosexuals by forcing them to go on mandatory brothel visits, an experience that so put off the narrator that he desisted from ever having intercourse with a female.

The memoir ends with liberation and the reunion between the narrator and his beloved mother. But he finds that prejudice against homosexuals is still prevalent in his native Austria and at the time the book was written, we are told that homosexuality was legalised in Austria in 1971.

A well-written account of life as experienced by homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps.

Written in the first person, this book describes in vivid detail the horror of day to day life in a Nazi concentration camp. It's one man's eyewitness account of the camps, the death and degradation he faced on a daily basis, and how he clung to his humanity ~ and his life ~ against such unbearable odds.

Most telling ~ though not really very surprising, given the vast power differences between prisoners and their guards ~ was his recollection of camp politics. He managed to survive by taking advantage of a guard whose friendliness toward him turned into sexual interest.

This book is not for the faint of heart. The scenes of horror that play out ~ the executions, the torture ~ are not graphic in their description, but the stark, terse language in which they're conveyed, married with the sense of hopelessness you read between the lines, speak more to the brutality of the Nazis than a thousand descriptive paragraphs ever could.

But this was probably one of the best books I've read on the Holocaust. I wish it were required reading for every person, everywhere, as a testament of the human spirit in adversity and a warning to us all. Perhaps then we could begin to move past our differences to a more peaceful co-existance.

This is a must read for everyone who wants to discover the whole truth abut the concentration camps that the devilish Nazis set up during WW2. It's also a must read for every gay man in the world because it documents an important chapter about how gay men were so ill-treated (starved, beaten, horribly tortured, dishonorably killed) during ww2 and afterwards. I'm just sorry that the author didin't identify himself, because if he was living today I would try to find him and thank him for telling his story. It also documents the horrible descrimination that the gays suffered after 1945 until the 70s and how differently they were treated than the jews. These had the holocaust horror recognised immediately after the war was over, but no such luck for the few gay men who survived the camps (mostly Sachsenhausen and Flossenburg). Don't miss this book if you're setting up any kind of document, museum, documentary about gay people in the 20th century. I'm so touched by the men who died in those camps, I just can't believe how much they suffered....I've been at Sachsenhausen 2 months ago, and they had a sign in memory of the gay people that have died there, but I didn't realize the horror in it's full scope. All this just makes hate more and more anyone who defends the nazis and that deny the holocaust. I hope the nazis who did these crimes burn and suffer in hell for all eternity for everything they did. But I think it won't be enough punishment.....

Skillfully woven between the horror of experience and the constant questioning of unexplainable reasons for being "selected" because of sexual preference, the author speaks with chilling candor. Many detailes packed this book. Receiving brutal physical and physological treatment and forced to undergo humilations due to his homesexuality, the author despairs his treatment by "normal" men. Excellent reading.