Jan 27, 2008
Quickie Link: Nation Remembers Victims of the Holocaust
By vanrozenheim
(UK) - More than 1,600 people including survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides are attending a memorial service at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall. The annual event, held as Liverpool acts as European Capital of Culture falls on the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Between 5,000 and 15,000 Gay men were held in concentration camps by the Nazis as members of an "anti-social group." Historians estimate that 60% of them died while incarcerated. After the war Gay men were not recognised as victims of the Holocaust and many were re-imprisoned by the authorities because of the sexuality. They were denied the reparations and state pensions available to other groups.