U.S. Holocaust Council

gets gay victim information

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 18Gay activists in the Nation's Capital today presented new information concerning the Nazi campaign against homosexual men to the Federal Government agency responsible for promoting public awareness of the Holocaust.

The new information is contained in the preliminary manuscript of a book tentatively entitled Pink-Triangle: The Social History of Antihomosexual Persecu tion in Nazi Germany; its principal author is Dr. Ruediger Lautmann, Professor of History at the University of Bremen.

A copy of this manuscript was presented in a brief ceremony this morning to the Executive Director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, Dr. Monroe Freedman, by Craig Howell. Government Projects Coordinator for the D.C. Gay Activists Alliance, and Clint Hockenberry. American Liaison for the International Gay Association.

Dr. Lautmann's book is believed to be the first on this subject based on comprehensive research in the archives of the International Tracing Service, where all surviving concentration camp records are preserved. Gay activists hope this documentation will demonstrate that the story of the gay victims of Nazi terror deserves to be an integral part of the proposed National Museum on the Holocaus' and that these victims should be among those explicitly recognized and honored in any other activities commemorating

the Holocaust.

The Gay Activists Alliance had appealed to then-President Carter in early 1980 for an end to "more than three decades of official silence" about the "thousands of homosexuals...murdered in the concentration camps as part of Hitler's plan to 'purify' the Aryan race."

GAA's letter was referred to the ocaust Council's new Execu

Notable quote

From THE MANUFACTURE OF MADNESS, A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE INQUISITION AND THE MENTAL HEALTH MOVEMENT by Thomas S. Szasz, M.D. (published in 1970):

"My contention that the psychiatric perspective on homosexuality is but a thinly disguised replica of the religious perspective which it displaced, and that efforts to 'treat' this kind of conduct medically are but thinly disguised methods for suppressing it, may be verified by examining any contemporary psychiatric account of homosexuality. The handling of the subject by Karl Menninger, widely recognized as the most liberal' and 'progressive' of modern psychiatrists, is illustrative. In The Vital Balance, Menninger discusses homosexuality under the general rubric of 'A Second Order of Dyscontrol

and Dysorganization, immediately following an analysis of 'Perverse Sexual Modalities.' 'We cannot, like Gide, extol homosexuality,' writes Menninger. 'We do not, like some, condone it. We. regard it as a symptom with all the functions of other symptoms--aggression, indulgence. self-punishment, and the effort to forestall something worse.' (Italics added.) Menninger, like other medical writers on moral topics, gives himself away by the choice of his words: If homosex-· uality is a 'symptom, what is there to 'condone or not 'condone"? Menninger would not speak of 'condoning or not condoning' the fever of pneumonia or the jaundice of biliary obstructionbut he does speak of 'not condoning' a psychiatric 'symptom."

"...Occasionally, however, Menninger forgets his clinical lines and speak's in explicitly clerical terms. In his Introduction to The Wollenden Report, for example, he asserts that 'Prosti-

.

tion and homosexuality ran high in the kingdorn of evils' Surely a remarkable statement from a leading psychiatrist in the second half of the twentieth century. Nor does calling prostitution and homosexuality grave sins, prevent Menninger from regarding these activities as mental illnesses as well. From the

the psychiatrist,' he writes. both homosexuality and prostitution—and add to this the use of prostitutes constitutes evidence of immature sexuality and either arrested psychological development or regression. Whatever it be called by the public. there is no question (sic) in the minds of psychiatrists regarding the abnormality of such behavior. Menninger seems to believe that entertaining no doubts about one's opinions is a special virtue, a sure sign of psychiatric grace."

tive Director, Dr. Freedman, who had served as volunteer General Counsel to Frank Kameny's Mattachine Society of Washington in the early 1960's..

In his response, Dr. Freedman assured GAA-that "I would be extremely grateful if you would supply the Council with any documents, memoirs, and historical research and analysis that you have relating to the Holocaust."

GAA learned of Dr. Lautmann's research through Dr. Page Grubb of Amsterdam, a leader of the International Gay Association who was translating Dr. Lautmann's work into English. Thanks to the offices of Dr. Grubb, Dr. Lautmann earlier this year agreed to release his findings to the Holocaust Council.

A key chapter of Dr. Lautmann's book is scheduled to be included later this year in the Journal of Homosexuality. However, efforts to secure an American publisher for the entire book have thus far been futile.

JULY 1981 HIGH GEAR Page 13

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