Remembering the end of madness and death

Liberation of Auschwitz signaled end of WWII

This year, and certainly this week, humanity remembers the end of one of the many terrible moments in Europe's history, i.e. the liberation of Auschwitz and many other but similar places where millions of humans were tortured and killed simply for who they were, including Jews, other religious people, Gypsies, LGBTs as well as people who are considered to be left because they defended human rights and thus solidarity although for a short time Stalin's communism and Nazism seemed to join forces. And thus, although Jews were the largest group who were targeted, also the other groups should be remembered.

Gay (and lesbians) during Hitler's time

This Attitude article discusses mainly gay men although also lesbians were victims but I think also people who were accused to be LGBT so society would get rid of them. These men received little help from society as they were considered by society at large to be below any other human, even below animals and to symbolise this they had to wear a pink triangle. And, while Hitler was considered to be the devil on earth, together with people like Stalin although history is mild on Stalin as liberator of Europe, not only Nazi's but also other camp prisoners also abused LGBTs just as Hitler wanted and this before these other prisoners were killed.

The love that didn't dare to speak its name and still scares many when they see it

Later, as if a God's gift in religious terms, a gay man, Alan Turing, managed to break the Germans' code and as a result the Allies were able to know Hitler's moves and defeat him. Still, similar as many gay men experienced during and after the liberation of the concentration camps whereby survivors were kept imprisoned and later refused compensation, as a gay man, he was later fired and died from eating a poisonous apple (suicide, accident, murder?). In 2009 UK's PM Gordon Brown acknowledge the wrong done and honoured Alan Turing.

To honour the gay people in WWII, Belgium called its gay pride Pink Saturday but as a large number of men didn't want to be associated with pink the name was changed into today's Belgian Pride.

Today - Freedom and suppression

Today, in a growing number of countries, LGBTs enjoy freedom and even equality with any other person. However and sometimes as a response against the growing visibility of LGBTs, many LGBTs still don't receive much protection when they are prosecuted such as in Syria, in Chechnya, ... . Often although not exclusively this hate results from religious leaders who preach hate whereby even many non-believers agree.

Today, many (American) religious group understand Hitler was pure evil, the devil on earth who can only do bad to others. That's a reason why many are ashamed and defend Israel, whatever its human right violations of the original inhabitants of that region, i.e. the Palestinians, even when the Palestinians may be Jews who converted to Islam to survive. Many also oppose Europe and its EU that they consider to be evil as it, after all the wrong that happened in Europe, still refuses to defend without criticism Jewish Israel against non Jews.

As history mostly exclusively teaches about the mistreatment of Jews during WWII while mentioning the suffering of other groups equals minimising the holocaust of the Jews so many people don't know and thus can't understand that also other groups suffered badly. And thus the extremist part of these religious groups, of whom many can be defined as right and extremely rich, continues to verbally attack the human rights of LGBTs just as they dislike other groups of people. Indeed, these very Christian extremists use the Jews, not because they like them but for their own agenda to rule the world. Indeed, other tactics but same hate as before. Still, with a jealous God who wants to be master of all humans, this can only be achieved when all humans recognise each other as equal when we behave well. Humans who include Jews, Muslims, Christians, people from other religions, straight, bi, gay/lesbian, ... .

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