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Last gay concentration camp survivor dies

Fri 5 Aug 2011 In: International News

Rudolf Braza The last-known gay man to survive a Nazi concentration camp where he was sent because of his sexuality has died at the age of 98, in France. Rudolf Brazda was born in 1913 in the central state of Thuringia to Czech parents. In 1934, Nazi Germany declared homosexuality to be an aberration that threatened the German race and convicted some 50,000 gay people as criminals. It's estimated 10,000 to 15,000 gay men were deported to concentration camps, where few survived. Brazda was among those arrested and in 1937 he was imprisoned for six months before being deported from Germany to Czechoslovakia. After the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938, Brazda was arrested for a second time in 1941. He spent another six months behind bars, and was then sent to Buchenwald concentration camp for three years, where, like other gay men, he was forced to wear a pink triangle. When US forces liberated the camp in 1945, Brazda moved to Alsace in France, where he became a French citizen, living for 35 years with his partner, Edouard, who died in 2003. Earlier this year, he was named a knight in France's Legion of Honor for his contributions in the recognition for the thousands of gay men who were deported to Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. Brazda's body will be cremated and his ashes placed next to Edouard's.    

Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff

First published: Friday, 5th August 2011 - 3:10pm

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