#pride #equality #justice #freedom #love #Repost @holocaustmuseum ・・・ Why were homosexual men targeted for persecution during the Third Reich? Under Nazi racial pseudoscience, homosexual men were considered a contagious threat to the German “national community” because they did not contribute to the growth of the Aryan race. The Nazis used and expanded Paragraph 175 of Germany’s existing criminal code to arrest and imprison these men. In Nazi concentration camps, they were subjected to hard labor and even medical experiments aimed at “curing” them. This is Karl Gorath. When he was 26, he was imprisoned at the Neuengamme concentration camp after being denounced to the police by his jealous lover. There, he was forced to wear a pink triangle on his prisoner uniform. His training as a nurse eventually got him transferred to another camp to work in the hospital there; however, when a guard ordered him to decrease the rations for the patients who were Polish war prisoners, Karl refused. He was sent to Auschwitz as punishment. After enduring years in the concentration camp system, Karl was liberated from Auschwitz in 1945. Even after the war ended, he continued to encounter difficulties because of his prior conviction under Paragraph 175. (photo credit: Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau w Oświęcimiu) #PrideMonth #LGBTHistory