The words “Death to LGBT” were found spray painted on a monument in Tel Aviv that commemorates members of the gay and lesbian community who were persecuted by the Nazi regime.
The graffiti was found last Thursday morning at the monument in Meir Park where the LGBT community center is located. The statue is shaped like a pink triangle, evoking the pink triangles gays and lesbians were forced to wear on their concentration camp prisoner uniform.
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai condemned the vandalism, and immediately ordered the graffiti removed. Soon afterwards, he posted a picture on Facebook showing that the monument had been cleaned of the graffiti. “We will continue to act and to protect members of the community as we have done so far,” he said.
The monument was inaugurated in Meir Park in 2014. Homosexuality was a felony under the Third Reich. The Gestapo founded an anti-homosexual unit that kept lists of nearly 100,000 names of people who were alleged members of the LGBT community. An estimated 5,000-15,000 of them were sent to concentration camps.
In Buchenwald and other concentration camp, experiments were carried out ostensibly to cure people of homosexuality.
The exact number of gays and lesbians killed during the Hitler years will never be known.