The memorial by Jean-Luc Verna honours the thousands of lives lost during WWII and after…
Last weekend, on International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, a new memorial by French artist and LGBTQ+ activist Jean-Luc Verna was unveiled close to Place de la Bastille (Bastille Plaza) in a public garden. The memorial honours the gay victims of the Nazi regime and all LGBTQ+ people persecuted. It is represented by a giant star wand emerging from the ground, with a black and a mirrored side.
“There’s a black side in front of us, forcing us to remember…At certain times of the day, it casts a long shadow on the ground, evoking the dangers looming over,” Verna told the Associated Press about the piece. On the mirrored side, the artist notes how its reflection of the sky represents “the colour of time passing, with the Paris sky moving as quickly as public opinion, which can change at any moment.”
“Historical recognition means saying ‘this happened’ and ‘we don’t want it to happen again,'” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said at the unveiling. The memorial comes 20 years after French President Jacques Chirac formally recognized the persecution of LGBTQ+ people during World War II.
According to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code criminalized homosexuality, but wasn’t frequently enforced until the Nazi’s redrafted the legislation making it harsher. Between 5,000 and 15,000 men accused of homosexuality were sent to concentration camps, identified by a pink triangle on their uniforms. Most died in the camps with many being castrated and experimented on.
While lesbians or trans individuals were not included in the Paragraph, many still ended up in camps. After the war, the Nazi-amended Paragraph 175 was not revised, leaving many gay men in prison and unrecognized as victims of the Nazi regime.
The unveiling of the steel monument comes at a critical time for LGBTQ+ people worldwide with setbacks to rights and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment rising. In Europe, Hungary passed a constitutional amendment to ban LGBTQ+ gatherings and Greece is set to ban gay men from having children through surrogacy. Meanwhile in the United States the government has been restricting the rights of trans people and more, leading many countries to impose travel advisories.
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