A Sacred Obligation
Remarks delivered by Barrett L. Brick on the occasion of
We gather here today to fulfill a sacred obligation . . . an obligation of memory. To
remember, and to bear witness. To pierce a silence that, too often, still seeks to enshroud
us.
We come together at a juxtaposition of events that are rightfully intertwined: the dedication
of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the National March on Washington for
Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. The March, a clarion call for justice.
The Museum, described by one writer as "a place of terrible beauty," standing as a reminder
of the consequences of the failure of justice of cowardice, indifference, appeasement,
and silence, the fertile soils in which evil can flourish.
A year ago I stood at Mauthausen, a concentration camp in Austria. As you enter the site,
there is a remembrance wall of memorial plaques. One is a triangle of pink stone, placed
there nine years ago by the Austrian national Gay association. On the plaque, these words:
"To the homosexuals killed by National Socialism---Totgeschlagen, Totgeschwiegen." Beaten
to death, silenced to death.
It was not enough to beat, torture, and burn our bodies. When liberation came, they tried
still to keep shackled our memory, our history, our souls.
And yet, we endured. And yet, we spoke. In the words of one Gay writer:
That was written in Die Insel, in Germany, in July 1952, translated and published in
the first issue of the magazine One in the United States in January 1953 . . . forty
years ago. It was not the first time we would speak out, nor would it be the last. Nor were
we entirely alone, ourselves alone speaking for ourselves. Some, such as the historian Eugene
Kogon, and the author Leon Uris, wrote of the experiences of Gays in the concentration camps.
By and large, however, it was not until the late 1970s that the public at large began to
become aware that the pink triangle was a real part of a real nightmare. As Richard Plant
has written in The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals: "[F]or most
historians, there was and still is a taboo in effect."
Such a taboo of silence truly does equal death. Silence completes the work of Hitler. Yet
as we prove here today, as this Museum bears witness, the silence will endure no longer, but
crumbles before the simple truth of our voices. Never again will the world deny that, in the
words of President Clinton yesterday, we were killed for whom we loved.
For the living and for the dead, for ourselves and for future generations, we and this
Museum bear witness to the truth of our heritage and our history: of community and survival,
of terror and death, of love and resistance. We preserve our stories, and we tell them:
A year ago I stood at Mauthausen. The exhibits in the buildings that remain some
barracks, a kitchen, a gas chamber and crematorium record the history of those
incarcerated there, including our Gay martyrs. The barracks into which we were segregated
no longer stands. There is just a gently raised mound. Grass grows over it, and wildflowers
bloom. In that place of nightmare and death, new life shoots forth its fragile beauty.
We here today are part of that new life. Each time we show the world that homosexuals are
not cowards . . . each time we fulfill our sacred obligation of memory . . . each time we
tell the truth of our history and our heritage . . . we demonstrate our commitment that
indifference shall not stand, and that silence shall not descend ever again.
the dedication of the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum and the National March on Washington for
Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation
Friday, April 23, 1993
After the gruesome murders committed upon homophiles
during the era of the late Dictator, it has now
become intolerable longer to suffer banishment to
prison and exposure to disgrace of men who have
done nothing but that which is the commandment of
their nature.
One day in Amsterdam, the Nazis conducted an
arrest of some of the Jewish population. They were
brought to a staging area near the train station before
being sent to the concentration camp. One guard was
standing over them. Two men lovers walked by and
saw the situation. One of them took it upon himself to
distract the guard, while the other helped as many of
the Jews as he could to escape, while the guard's atten-
tion was diverted. The Nazis came for the couple that
night, and took them into the maw of terror. And in
the camp they ended up in, as an example to the others,
one of the guards began to beat and beat and beat one
of the couple, near unto death. Finally his lover could
stand it no longer, and raced from the crowd and
threw himself upon the guard, screaming at the top
of his voice, 'Let the world know that homosexuals
are not cowards!' They shot and killed him over
the dying body of his lover.