More than 75 years after they were murdered or shot in gas chambers, homosexual victims of Nazi persecution were placed in Amsterdam this week with a “stumbling block”.
About 8,500 in the Netherlands stumbling block, (Stumbling block), a brass memorial plaque inlaid on the street, calling on passersby to remember the individual victims of Nazi genocide and oppression. This is a spiritual “stumbling block” that forces pedestrians to recall the past.
The four stones laid this week are the first in the world Netherlands According to Dutch historian Judith Schuyf, who played a leading role in the project, this is to commemorate the well-known homosexual Jews and resistance fighters.
“In the Netherlands, it has been discussed that homosexuals were not really persecuted in the war,” she said. She knew that was not the case, and had identified several Jews and resistance fighters who were identified as homosexuals in the police file.
“They were arrested because they were gay; they were sent to the concentration camp because they were Jewish,” she said. “They died earlier and they didn’t have the opportunity to make many Jews have to hide. It’s complicated, but I’m pretty sure they were arrested because they were gay.”
Sexual acts were also mentioned in the trials of non-Jewish resistance workers, including Karel Pekelharing, Stolestein this week. He is an artist, he joined the resistance movement, destroying the persecution of Jews by forging identity documents and helping Jews to hide. In March 1944, Pekelharing participated in a bold raid on Weteringschans prison, with the purpose of liberating the resistance fighters. The attack failed. A week later, he was arrested and tortured. In June 1944, he and six comrades in arms were shot dead in the sand dunes of the North Sea.
The other stone is reminiscent of Mina Sluijter, a tailor who was arrested in July 1942 when Dutch Jews began their deportation. Her police file stated that she was “detained for homosexuality…also Jewish”. Two months after being arrested, she was murdered in Auschwitz.
A total of nine homosexual victims of Nazi persecution are being remembered. In early October, another five hand-made brass plaques will be laid on the street. Six of the nine were Jewish and four were workers in the resistance movement. One of the nine members of the orchestra conductor and cellist Frieda Belinfante is a Jewish resistance worker. After fleeing to Switzerland, she was the only one of nine people who survived the war.
The chance of survival for Dutch Jews is lower than that of neighboring countries Belgium and France. Three quarters of the Jews in the Netherlands were killed. Approximately 102,000 people were murdered in death camps, and 2,000 committed suicide or died while trying to escape.
Local activists believe that homosexual victims have been ignored. “We think these people are very sad. They usually have no children, partners or relatives to ask for stumbling block Because they just disappeared. We want to give them a name,” said Philip Tijsma, spokesperson for the Dutch COC who organized the sidewalk monument.
COC Netherlands is an LGBTQ+ rights activist organization founded in 1946 by former resistance workers, who said they “no longer be oppressed.”
See the first four stumbling block Tisma said that Tuesday’s burial was “a very exciting time.” “Because you are standing in front of the house, they live in front of the house until they are transported to Auschwitz or Sobibor the day before they are destroyed or shot… this is about stumbling block; It makes history very close, it makes it almost tangible, and this is where they walked, right on this sidewalk. “
