Outlawing Homosexuality in Nazi Germany: Reflections on the film, “BENT”

During the Holocaust, homosexual men imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps were required to wear inverted pink triangle badges on their uniforms, a symbol that was later reclaimed as an emblem of Gay Pride. Join Dr. Jake Newsome, Scholar and Author of Pink Triangle Legacies: Coming Out in the Shadow of the Holocaust, and Dr. Kerry Whigham, Assistant Professor of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention at Binghamton University and Co-Director of its Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, for a conversation about “BENT,” the 1979 play subsequently adapted for the big screen, which explores the persecution of Queer men in Nazi Germany, during and after the Night of Long Knives in 1934.

This event is part of a special collaboration between the Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) and the QCC-CUNY LGBTQIA+ Consortium in a semester-long project entitled “Performance as Prevention.” Programming of the QCC Chapter of the CUNY LGBTQIA+ Consortium is made possible due to generous funding from the New York City Council Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual Caucus and the Office of the Mayor; and supported by the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives. QCC promotional partners for this programming includes: the Ally LGBTQIA+ Club; the LGBTQIA+ Faculty and Staff Association; and the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL). It is co-sponsored by the Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at Western Washington University; the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies at the US Military Academy at West Point; the Holocaust & Human Rights Center in White Plains; and the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University.

For more information about the Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center, please visit https://khc.qcc.cuny.edu.

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