PIttsburgh exhibit chronicles Nazi abuse of gays

"Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933-1945" is a traveling project of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The formal opening will be Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. in the center's Levinson Hall, with a keynote speech by the exhibit's curator, Ted Phillips.

"This exhibit is unprecedented," said Edie Naveh, director of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, which is co-sponsoring the show. "There's never been anything else like it, certainly not in this country."

Using reproduced photos, papers, police reports, first-person accounts, artwork and a connecting historical narrative, the exhibit traces the roots and progression of Hitler's anti-homosexual campaign.

By the end of the war, more than 100,000 men had been arrested. Some 50,000 served prison terms, and an unknown number were sent to mental hospitals. Others, maybe hundreds, were castrated. Somewhere between 5,000 and 15,000 were sent to concentration camps, where many died from starvation, disease, exhaustion and beatings and murder.

The Nazis also targeted homosexuals within the military, forcing them to serve and then using them as cannon fodder on suicide missions.

The discrimination outlasted the war by at least a half century. Men, and some women, who had been prosecuted and punished for their presumed homosexuality were not permitted to receive reparations, unlike other persecuted groups.

For a full list of related programs, visit holocaustcenterpgh.net. To schedule a tour, call the center at 412-421-1500. More information also is available at ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/hsx.