Tel Aviv on Tuesday inaugurated
Israel's first memorial dedicated to the thousands of men and women
who were persecuted by the Nazis for their sexual orientation.
According to Tel Aviv daily Haaretz,
the memorial is located in Meir Park and is steeped in the imagery
used by the Nazi Party to persecute gays: pink triangles.
“One is concrete, and on it appears
an explanation of the persecution of homosexuals during the
Holocaust,” the paper wrote. “The second, which is painted on a
concrete triangle, is an upside-down triangle painted pink, of the
type the Nazis forced homosexuals to wear. The third triangle faces
the other two and consists of three pink benches.”
“In memory of those persecuted by the
Nazi regime for their sexual orientation and gender identity,” a
marker reads in Hebrew, English and German.
An estimated 15,000 such people were
sent to concentration camps, where more than half perished. Nazi
officials also carried out medical experiments aimed at altering a
person's sexuality from gay to straight.
Similar monuments can be found in
Berlin, Amsterdam, Sydney and San Francisco, the
paper reported.