German officials
have launched an investigation after a monument
memorializing gay Holocaust victims was vandalized last
week, Reuters reports. Vandals smashed a window in the
monument, a large gray cube in Tiergarten park in
Berlin. Through the window, onlookers could see a
picture of two men kissing. The perpetrators also ripped
down fencing.
"This cowardly
and shocking act is an attack on the image we have of
ourselves as a tolerant and open city," said Frank Henkel, a
Berlin lawmaker and member of the conservative
Christian Democrats. "Obviously many people still have
homophobic tendencies."
The monument was
unveiled in May, honoring the 50,000 gay men who were
convicted by the Nazis. Some men were castrated, and
thousands were sent to concentration camps.
Rudlof Brazda, a
Buchenwald concentration camp survivor, called the
attack shocking and appalling in a statement from the
Germany Lesbian and Gay Federation.
"To see such a
thing today after all the suffering and horror we had
to go through, it is cruel," he said. "People don't want to
accept that there are people who are different from them by
nature." (The Advocate)
