For my research I've just finished the famous autobiography of Primo Levi, an Italian Jew, who wrote eloquently about his experiences in the Concentration Camps during the Nazi era of WWII. The book is useful for an overview of how the camps were organised and run. The capacity of human nature to endure in such conditions and the internal stresses and squabbles that break out among the camp's inmates are enlightening. I found Levi's description of the 'drowned' and the 'saved' poignant; how new incomers could swiftly be assessed by the long timers; between those who could adapt quickly using all possible resources to survive, and those marked for almost immediate mental collapse - leading to death within days... weeks...
I did mention the point at a recent Thames Valley Group meeting that Levi describes three categories of triangle prisoners - green for criminals, red for political, and the yellow star for Jewish inmates. He completely ignores the pink triangle prisoners... Though there are fleeting references in the book to homosexuals in the camp. Levi's writing implies that there are no other categories. Whether this is intentional or an oversight I do not know.
Just for clarity here are all the categories of prisoner including the ones that Levi omitted:
Nazi concentration camp badge system.
I've come back to edit this post with some further thoughts I had overnight...
If we are going to categorise people by their sexuality (as the Nazi regime did by strengthening laws against homosexuality) then it is worth analysing the situation in the camps to this effect. In the book The Men With The Pink Triangle by Heinz Heger, the pink triangle prisoner Josef Kohout described his time during incarceration. The prisoners convicted of homosexuality were strictly watched at all times and Josef recounts how at night they all had to sleep with their arms placed above the bedclothes. The lights were left on all night (unlike all the other huts) and frequent checks were made to ensure prisoners were not 'touching themselves' or each other...
Josef recounts the ridiculousness of this obsession that heterosexuals have with homosexuals having sex; because as he states in the book, and this is in fact baked up by Primo Levi too, that homosexual acts were taking place in the camp by the non-pink triangle prisoners. Guards were having sex with prisoners; prisoners with each other, and some of the civilians they came into contact with too. This is for various reasons; leaving aside the convicted pink triangle prisoners it is obvious that there would have been homosexuals in all the other groups too. They would have been convicted not for so called 'pink triangle crimes' but because of their political views, been professional and petty villains or of Jewish origin. As well as the homosexuals in these other groups there would have been bisexuals who would have been having sex with other men. Then there are the group of men who did not consider themselves homosexual (nowadays called 'men who have sex with men') but will resort to homosexual sex when there are no available women (it is important to note this category is not the same as bisexual men). Another category would be men seeking to gain an advantage of some kind (despite their heterosexuality) and be prepared to have sex with other prisoners, guards, and civilians. This would be to obtain better food rations, clothing, easier jobs, and ultimately to attain a goal of survival under the harshest conditions imaginable.
So, as Josef rightly points out, to put a searchlight on the pink triangle prisoners was absurd and a waste of time considering the behaviour of many prisoners not convicted of homosexuality. As in society then, and to a certain extent even today, there is a hypocrisy at work in the prevailing culture that allows for homosexuality to be tolerated as long as it is not spoken about and discreet, the beliefs of the heteronormative culture are upheld in public - and you don't get caught...
This hypocrisy is also doubly cruel when you consider the beatings meted out to the pink triangle prisoners (who generally weren't having sex in the camps anyway) such as assignment of futile jobs like wheelbarrowing snow or rocks from one side of the camp to the other for the purposes of breaking their spirit and early death.
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