Vandals defile Berlin monument to Nazis' gay victims

BERLIN (Reuters) - German politicians expressed dismay on Monday at the desecration of a monument to tens of thousands of homosexuals persecuted under the Nazis which was opened less than three months ago in Berlin.

Police said they were looking for the unidentified perpetrators who at the weekend attacked the monument, a large grey cube located in the Tiergarten park in central Berlin.

The vandals had smashed a window in the monument through which viewers could see a picture of two men kissing and also ripped down some fencing. Police said it was unclear if the motive for the attack was political.

"This cowardly and shocking act is an attack on the image we have of ourselves as a tolerant and open city," said Frank Henkel, a senior lawmaker in the Berlin assembly and member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats.

"Obviously many people still have homophobic tendencies."

Greens politicians also condemned the attacks which they described as a warning sign that homophobia was still rampant in German society.

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http://www.religiousleft.us/2008/05/monument-to-honor-homosexual-holocaust.html

http://www.2015place.com/2008/05/berlin-unveils-monument-for-gay.html

http://www.2015place.com/2008/05/memorial-to-gay-holocaust-victims-to-be.html

http://www.2015place.com/2008/02/german-memorial-for-gay-holocaust.html

Jew calls memorial to homosexual holocaust victims "a error"

This week Berlin celebrated the new Memorial to Homosexual Holocaust victims.

It seems there is at least one Jewish Holocaust survivor who is unhappy with this.

"For many years after the war, I had the impression that the Germans understood the immense scope of the crime of the Holocaust which they had committed ... But this time, they made an error," Israel Gutman of Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Institute told Poland's Rzeczpospolita daily. "The location was particularly poorly chosen for this monument. If visitors have the impression that there was not a great difference between the suffering of Jews and those of homosexuals, it's a scandal," Mr. Gutman said. "A sense of proportion must be maintained." Mr. Gutman, himself a Holocaust survivor, said the Nazis persecuted "exclusively German" homosexuals, many of them Nazis, "victims of internal political battles within the NSDAP," the national-socialist or Nazi party of Adolf Hitler. [link]

Respectfully, Mr. Gutman, proportionally, there are over 2700 memorials to Jewish victims in Tiergarten Park and 1 memorial for Homosexual victims.

Berlin unveils Monument for Gay Holocaust Victims

The monument is located in Berlin's central Tiergarten park across from the Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe.

The monument is described as a pillar, 11.8 feet high and 6.2 feet wide.

One side of the monument has a window/portal through which one can view a video screen. The video is a one-and-a-half minute loop. It was made on the same spot where the monument stands and shows two men in a passionate kiss.

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