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President of the Bundestag Bärbel Bas
Photo: Christoph Soeder / dpa
Next year, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Bundestag will also commemorate queer victims of National Socialism for the first time.
"In fact, on January 27, 2023, at the commemoration event for the victims of National Socialism, we will focus on the people who were persecuted, imprisoned and murdered because of their sexual and gender identity," said Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD) to the Berlin "Tagesspiegel «.
The Presidium had already decided that unanimously.
An official Bundestag commemoration of the Nazi victims who were persecuted and murdered because of their sexual and gender identity has been demanded for several years, and a petition signed by scientists, civil society and victims' associations has been available since 2018.
So far, the Bundestag Presidium had not responded to this.
LSVD welcomes step
The Bundestag is now in the middle of preparing for the event, said Bas.
There is no definitive list of speakers.
"Unfortunately, there are no more survivors, but we are very closely coordinated, also with the German Lesbian and Gay Association," said the President of the Bundestag.
On behalf of the Lesbian and Gay Association (LSVD), board member Henny Engels explained that at the first hour of commemoration on Holocaust Remembrance Day in 1996, then Federal President Roman Herzog also named homosexuals as a group of victims of National Socialist persecution.
So far, the Bundestag has not specifically thought about these victims.
"We are all the more pleased that the incumbent Bundestag Presidium has decided to call this group of victims into collective memory in the coming year," said Engels.
till/AFP
