Conference examines LGBTQ+ experience in WWII era

Kelly Kraemer, the sole remaining peace studies professor at CSB+SJU, hosted the 35th annual Peace Studies Conference on Nazi brutality against the LGBTQ+ community during the years preceding and during World War II. The event was held on Tuesday in Quad 170 at 4:30 p.m.

The event began with a 20-minute video from World History Channel detailing the history of the brutality. According to the film, over 100,000 gay men were arrested during the Holocaust, and between 5,000 and 15,000 were held in concentration camps. The arrests were made in coordination with German Law Section 175, which banned a number of sexual and relational acts (including those relating to gender expression) and was based on the belief that the sole purpose of sex should be reproduction. The arrests were largely made due to the denunciation of gay men by their families and neighbors, who held to the dominant homophobic cultural norms.

Gay men were viewed as a threat to the Aryan race, especially due to their proximity of power, and were often treated worse than other prisoners in concentration camps, with extra punishments and rules. Notably, one requirement was that they sleep with their hands above their blanket, even though centimeters of ice were forming on the walls and windows. After the war, queerness remained criminalized, and the gay men imprisoned largely remained so until homosexuality was legalized in Germany in 1969. In the early 2000s, Germany officially recognized gay Holocaust survivors and made them eligible for reparations.

The video was followed by a panel consisting of Ethan Riddle, a senior peace studies major who researches the Holocaust; Miel Aronson, a psychology major and Queer Proud Lavender Union for Students (QPLUS) outreach coordinator; and Kraemer. In the audience were faculty visiting from St. Olaf College and visiting author and historian Jake Newsome. Newsome hails from California and is a public historian focusing on queer history in the Holocaust. He has also started a nonprofit that focuses on educating people on queer Holocaust history and building solidarity within the queer community.

After the showing of the video, Aronson noted an observation about the internal systemic discrimination.

“One thing that really stuck with me was the internal prejudice within the concentration camps, and how there was a hierarchy within the prison…When you think about it, that’s a systemic thing. People in power were creating divides between marginalized people,” Anderson said.

Kraemer noted the absence of women in the analysis of the video.

“What we didn’t really hear about in this video was lesbian women and the transgender and nonbinary folks,” Kraemer said. “The question about lesbians intrigues me particularly because of the German racial ideology. If gay men were a threat to the racial hierarchy, weren’t lesbians doing the same thing? But it doesn’t appear that the consequences were handed down in the same way.”

One visiting scholar countered this point.

“Nazis don’t see women as people with agency. The misogyny supersedes any feminine identity because women could be forcibly impregnated,” the visiting scholar said.

The conversation continued with discussion of the dangerousness of the alt-right in modern America and the progress the United States has made in accepting marginalized groups. Riddle noted that the alt-right has shifted focus from gay marriage to transgender issues.

“We’ve seen the Republican Party pushing really hard on anti-trans legislation, but I don’t think the average person is galvanized by that,” Riddle said. It’s also an indication that republicans are no longer pushing against gay marriage like they used to. They are searching for a new issue to persecute the LGBTQ+ community on.”

Newsome rounded out the conversation by noting how everyday people contributed to the problem.

“One thing I appreciated about the video was that it pointed out that it was everyday people turning in other ordinary people because they wanted to create a Nazi utopia,” Newsome said. “All of these steps led to the creation of the concentration camps. It started with words and stereotypes.”

The event was succeeded by a formal dinner, and Newsome’s research presentation at 7:30 p.m.