Commemorative plaque unveiled in Italy for homosexual victims of Nazi occupation

21 Jan 2005

A plaque to remember homosexual victims of the Nazis in Italy will be unveiled next week at the ruins of a World War II death camp. The memorial is believed to be the first in the country for homosexual victims in Italy during Nazi Germany's occupation 1943-45. The camp in Trieste, in northeastern Italy, was the only death camp with a crematorium on Italian territory. The precise number of victims who perished at San Sabba is not known but estimates range from 3,000 to 5,000. Embedded in the black marble plaque will be a triangle of pink stone, to recall the pink, triangular-shaped piece of cloth that prisoners at the camp were forced to wear to indicate that they were homosexual.