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Loading ...Berlin gay monument vandalized
08.18.2008 1:44pm EDT
(Berlin) Police are searching for vandals who damaged a monument to gay victims of the Nazis in the German capital.
The monument, a gray concrete slab with a window allowing visitors to view a film projected inside that shows gay men and lesbians kissing, sits on the edge of Tiergarten Park near the memorial to the six-million Jews who died in the Holocaust. It was unveiled in May.Berlin police say that the window was smashed over the weekend. Authorities say there were no witnesses and few clues, but gay activists believe Neo-Nazis may be responsible.
“Everything suggests that this attack was motivated by a hatred of homosexuals,” Germany’s Association of Lesbians and Gays said in a statement:
Berlin’s openly gay mayor denounced the attack on the monument.
“An attack against this memorial is clearly directed against homosexuals – that can be said without waiting for further police investigations,” he told Spiegel. “We must show our condemnation of this act of intolerance and homophobia.”
The exact number of gays killed by the Nazis may never be known.
Adolf Hitler declared homosexuality an aberration that threatened the German race. Some 50,000 homosexuals were convicted and an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 gay men were deported to concentration camps, where few survived.
The Nazi law against homosexuality remained on the books in West Germany until 1969.
In 2002, the German parliament issued a formal pardon for gays convicted under the Nazis.
There also are monument to gay holocaust victims in Amsterdam and San Francisco, and another is planned for Israel.
I feel sorry for such Schmutz who dit it ! They have no respect for others, they must learn how to respect themselves in the first place.Its a great location near the Tiergarten, please have a look next time you are in Berlin.
I agree with Chris – Trace’s observation about park signs unrelated to minorities, minority status, or the memorialization of brutality toward minorities is a meaningless non sequitor. I’ve seen stop signs vandalized myself, but they aren’t representative of any group, and I doubt this monument used fragile single pane window glass. When someone exerts effort in an out of the way space at a monument w/ specific meaning to a minority group, there’s at least a very serious likelihood this may be a hate crime. Denying the possibility of hate crimes, no matter how likely, Trace, harms us all.
I sincerely doubt that this monument is readily accessible to the general public and if it is not, this would easily imply that it would have taken some level of premeditation to commit this crime. Thanks, but I’ll listen to Berlin’s mayor before another poster.
Couldn’t agree with you more Trace! This might have been anybody’s work. Maybe a drunk on a personal riot, or just some plain vandals…
“Everything suggests that this attack was motivated by a hatred of homosexuals,” Germany’s Association of Lesbians and Gays said in a statement
What everything? How do they jump to those decisions? I drive past a National Park every morning and some times the parks signs are vandalized. When that happens, I don’t automatically say that it’s someone that hates nature.
It’s comments like those of Germany’s Association of Lesbians and Gays that make it difficult for us to assert that hate crimes are real. If we start throwing the accusation without a basis, it harms us all.
Where are the cameras? This site should be monitored 24/7