The roots of the Nazi persecution of gay people are deep. Those thus branded were treated as “the lowest of the low in the camp hierarchy,” as one scholar put it.
Just as the Nazis forced Jewish people to wear a yellow Star of David, they forced people they labeled as gay to wear inverted pink triangles (or ‘die Rosa-Winkel’). The brightly colored symbol is now often worn proudly, but it was born from a dark period in LGBTQ history and world history.
