As part of Holocaust Remembrance Week, the AU Jewish community along with members of AU Queers and Allies and the GLBTA hosted a lecture on the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany.
A PowerPoint lecture was given by Neil Guthrie of the D.C. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
"The Jews wanted to create a master Aryan race and therefore 3,000 to 4,000 homosexual men and women who were living in Berlin were subjected to what Nazis called 'race hygiene,'" Guthrie said.
Guthrie spoke about the gay clubs that flourished in Berlin and how right-wing groups viewed them as "an unnatural decency."
"The Nazis believed that homosexuals could be cured through hard labor," Guthrie said. "They also put faith in gender regimentation...They wanted women to take on a subordinate role and men to be masculine."
Hitler practiced voluntary castration among homosexuals as well as medical experimentation, according to Guthrie.
Throughout his presentation, Guthrie highlighted Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a pioneer in homosexual issues.
"He saw homosexuality as part of a very broad spectrum of male and female sexuality," Guthrie said.
Between 1933 and 1945, 100,000 men were arrested only because they were homosexual, Guthrie said. Out of those 100,000, 50,000 were convicted, and sentenced to forced labor. Five thousand to 15,000 of those men ended up in some type of prison or concentration camp, according to Guthrie.
"Last year, the Jewish Student Association approached us to organize an event with a speaker on the gay men that died in the Holocaust," said Alison Waithe, president of AU Queers and Allies and a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. "It's important to remember and honor those who died during the Holocaust."
Hillary Blank, a first year student, is the executive religious education and cultural director of AU's Jewish Student Association.
"I know there are great resources for gender and sexuality on campus...they have appealed interest from the AU community," Blank said.
To end his presentation, Guthrie read a statement that was originally read in Frankfurt, Germany in December 1994. Part of the statement read, "Thereby we remember in the conviction that men who love men and women who love women can always be persecuted again"
