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Pink Triangle Legacies: Coming Out in the Shadow of the Holocaust--Dr. W. Jake Newsome in conversation with Leah Rauch

Event date: 
Thursday, February 2, 2023 - 7:30pm to 8:30pm

This event takes place on crowdcast, Charis' virtual event platform. Register here.

Charis welcomes Dr. W. Jake Newsome in conversation with Leah Rauch for a discussion of Pink Triangle Legacies: Coming Out in the Shadow of the HolocaustPink Triangle Legacies traces the transformation of the pink triangle from a Nazi concentration camp badge and emblem of discrimination into a widespread, recognizable symbol of queer activism, pride, and community. 

W. Jake Newsome provides an overview of the Nazis' targeted violence against LGBTQ+ people and details queer survivors' fraught and ongoing fight for the acknowledgement, compensation, and memorialization of LGBTQ+ victims. Within this context, a new generation of queer activists has used the pink triangle--a reminder of Germany's fascist past--as the visual marker of gay liberation, seeking to end queer people's status as second-class citizens by asserting their right to express their identity openly. 

The reclamation of the pink triangle occurred first in West Germany, but soon activists in the United States adopted this chapter from German history as their own. As gay activists on opposite sides of the Atlantic grafted pink triangle memories onto new contexts, they connected two national communities and helped form the basis of a shared gay history, indeed a new gay identity, that transcended national borders. 

Pink Triangle Legacies illustrates the dangerous consequences of historical silencing and how the incorporation of hidden histories into the mainstream understanding of the past can contribute to a more inclusive experience of belonging in the present. There can be no justice without acknowledging and remembering injustice. As Newsome demonstrates, if a marginalized community seeks a history that liberates them from the confines of silence, they must often write it themselves.

Dr. Jake Newsome is an award-winning scholar of German and American LGBTQ+ history whose research and resources educate global audiences. His new book Pink Triangle Legacies: Coming Out in the Shadow of the Holocaust (Cornell University Press) tells the dynamic and inspiring history of the LGBTQ+ community’s original pride symbol by tracing the transformation of the pink triangle from a Nazi concentration camp badge into a widespread emblem of queer liberation, pride, and community. The Lambda Literary Foundation recently named Pink Triangle Legacies as one of its most anticipated new LGBTQIA+ books of 2022.

Leah Rauch (she/her) is the Director of Education at Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, which was recently inducted to the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame for its work advocating for LGBTQ+ rights and the inclusion of LGBTQ+ history in classrooms, museums, and places of public memory. She previously worked as an adjunct professor at the Council on International Educational Exchange in Berlin and as an educator at Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum. A fierce advocate for LGBTQ+ education, her research interests include the intersectionality of those persecuted under National Socialism. 

This event is free and open to all people, especially to those who have no income or low income right now, but we encourage and appreciate a solidarity donation in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Charis Circle's mission is to foster sustainable feminist communities, work for social justice, and encourage the expression of diverse and marginalized voices. https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/CharisCircle?code=chariscirclepage

Please contact us at info@chariscircle.org or 404-524-0304 if you would like ASL interpretation at this event. If you would like to watch the event with live AI captions, you may do so by watching it in Google Chrome and enabling captions: Instructions here. If you have other accessibility needs or if you are someone who has skills in making digital events more accessible please don't hesitate to reach out to info@chariscircle.org. We are actively learning the best practices for this technology and we welcome your feedback as we begin this new way of connecting across distances.

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Event address: 
CROWDCAST
Pink Triangle Legacies: Coming Out in the Shadow of the Holocaust By William Jake Newsome Cover Image
$34.95
ISBN: 9781501765155
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Cornell University Press - September 15th, 2022

Pink Triangle Legacies traces the transformation of the pink triangle from a Nazi concentration camp badge and emblem of discrimination into a widespread, recognizable symbol of queer activism, pride, and community. W.


Event Summary: 
Pink Triangle Legacies traces the transformation of the pink triangle from a Nazi concentration camp badge and emblem of discrimination into a widespread, recognizable symbol of queer activism, pride, and community.