Brighton student to give talk to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day

Senior academic programme administrator and PHD student at the University of Brighton Jason Porter will present Hidden from History: The Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals at the Brighthelm Centre on Wednesday (January 29).

It will run at the North Road venue from 6pm and is free to attend.

Mr Porter said: “After gaining power in 1933, the Nazis began persecuting homosexuals as part of their plan to ‘purify’ Germany and rid the county of ‘moral degeneracy’. Statutes were strengthened, books were burned and clubs were closed.

“The once-thriving gay subculture in cities such as Berlin was devastated. Tens of thousands of homosexuals were arrested, many ended up in concentration camps, branded with pink triangles, where they faced particularly harsh treatment, with thousands being killed. Those who survived were met with hostility or indifference post-war and for decades their stories were ‘hidden from history’.

“Eventually, those who suffered at the hands of Nazism achieved recognition and remembrance through survivors’ memoirs, testimonies and memorials, whilst the pink triangle was adopted as a symbol of gay liberation and resistance.”

This year Holocaust Memorial Day falls today (Monday, January 27).

The annual day remembers those who suffered under Nazi persecution and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. 2020 is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the 25th anniversary of the genocide in Bosnia.