Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 10:24:50 -0400
From: Tom Hoemig <TomHoemig@compuserve.com>
Subject: LESBIANS AND GAYS URGE SWISS BANKS TO CONSIDER HOMOSEXUAL HOLOCAUST

International Lesbian and Gay Association

Administrative Office

Kolenmarkt, 81 · B-1000 - Brussels · Belgium
Phone & fax: + 32 2 502 24 71 · E-mail: ilga@ilga.org


Date: July 29, 1997

LESBIANS AND GAYS URGE SWISS BANKS TO CONSIDER HOMOSEXUAL HOLOCAUST

Co-Secretaries General of the International Lesbian and Gay Association
(ILGA), Jordi Petit in Barcelona and Jennifer Wilson in Sidney, request
that the Swiss Banker' Association (ABS in the French equivalent) support
the fight against AIDS in the homosexual community, in memory of the
thousands of murders and deportations during the Nazi regime on grounds of
sexual orientation. Female victims were marked with a black triangle and
men with a pink triangle.

The Swiss banks have revealed a series of "dormant" accounts belonging to
people fleeing from, or just afraid of, the Nazi regime. ILGA wishes to
point out that gypsies, Spanish republicans and homosexuals were also
persecuted, as well as Jews. Figures from the Red Cross and the protestant
Church of Austria in the 1940s suggest a total of around 350,000 homosexual
victims.

Following the ABS's decision on un-inherited funds, to distribute them
amongst charitable organisations designated by Jewish associations, ILGA,
with all due respect and solidarity for the Jewish people, proposes that
other persecuted minorities also be taken into consideration. Minorities
such as gypsies and homosexuals have never received compensation from the
German State. It's high time that Germany, as a State, raise an official
monument in memory of the homosexual holocaust.

Clearly, the people who hid their savings from the Nazis in Swiss banks are
non other than those persecuted by that regime: Jews, homosexuals,
democrats, gypsies, etc.   The coherent course of action to be taken with
unclaimed funds would be their use in benefit of those persecuted groups in
just proportion.


ILGA Communication Media Committee