Berlin memorial to persecuted gays

By Amy Bourke • June 4, 2007 - 16:55

The new memorial will echo the design of Eisenman's tribute to the Nazi's Jewish victims, a field of more than 2,700 concrete slabs.

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A memorial to gay people persecuted and murdered by the Nazis will be complete later this year, the German government announced today.

The tribute to forgotten victims will be situated on the edge of Tiergarten park, near to a memorial for the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust.

The memorial will take the form of a gray concrete slab, with a window to allow visitors to view a video. There will be two alternated videos which show either two men kissing or two women kissing.

Originally, the plan was for a video of just two men, but that proposal drew heavy criticism from people who claimed that lesbians were being excluded.

Its design echoes Peter Eisenman's Berlin memorial to the Nazis' Jewish victims, a vast field of more than 2,700 slabs.

The German parliament approved the construction of the memorial in December 2003.

A statement from the office of the culture minister confirmed that the tribute "should be completed this year," according to Associated Press.

Under the Nazi regime, 15,000 gay people were convicted as criminals and up to 15,000 were deported to concentration camps. Few survived.

The laws used against gay people in Germany remained on statute books until 1969.

But the German parliament of 2002 issued a formal pardon for any gay people convicted by the Nazis.

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