PRESS RELEASE November 10, 2003
'Kristallnacht' Discussions, Exhibit in Stockholm:
From the Tupilak photo exhibit ”Nazi & neo Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals” -- delegates of the first homo delegation to Auschwitz, handing over a Danish sculpture and a Finnish painting to the museum, honoring the information work about homosexuals who died in the Nazi concentration camps. (photo: Colin de la Motte-Sherman, ILGCN-Berlin).
Stockholm -- Discussions, readings, art and photo exhibits and memorial music were part of the November 9 'Kristallnacht' evening in
Stockholm -- in honor of the International Day Against Racism and
Antisemitism.
Discussions took up the link between Nazi atrocities and neo nazi
and other homophobic attacks on such events as Belgrade and Zagreb
'prides' as well as in Sweden -- with fatal stabbings of gays in
Gothenberg and other cities and with Nazi swastikas and 'kill homos'
sprayed on the windows of a homosexual-run cafe in Stockholm only a few weeks ago.
Photo exhibits covered the first official homosexual delegation
to Auschwitz and the pioneering erection of a homo monument in
Mauthausen concentration camp -- with work provided by HOSI-Linz in
Austria and Paul-Peter Hallberg of Stockholm. Other photos documented the HOSI-Linz exhibit tour to Tallinn and Riga this summer, while other exhibits described the annual 'Nazi & neo Nazi Persecution' events in Vilnius and other cities -- organized by the ILGCN (International Lesbian & Gay Cultural Network).
Homosexuals in the Death Camps, Protest Music
Readings included passages of the life and death of individual
lesbians and gays imprisoned in the Nazi camps -- provided by the U.S.
Memorial Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. Music included 'songs
of resistance' from various concentration camps and Norwegian opera
singer Björn Haugan's 'Toteslied' sung in Mauthausen during the
ILGCN/HOSI-Linz event there.
"We are pleased that this event followed the torch-light
'Kristallnacht' demonstrations in Stockholm, and that some of the
participants came straight to the discussions, filling the room at the
Herman's garden café donated for the meeting," says Bill Schiller, of
Tupilak ( Nordic organization of lesbian and gay cultural workers).
Other organizations supporting the event were the Nordic Homo
Council, Rainbow Homo Humanists, and HAI (network of homosexual
cultural workers in Nordic sections of Amnesty International).
******************
