Gays persecuted by Nazis get memorial

A love scene
The designers' original plan, which was to feature only a video with two men kissing, then ran into criticism that lesbians were left out. Last year, a compromise was reached under which the film will be changed every two years, allowing for lesbian couples also to be shown in future.

The first film — a repeating clip of two men kissing, shot at the site of the memorial before it was built — was done by photographer Robby Mueller and directed by Denmark's Thomas Vinterberg.

"It was quite important to have a direct imagery of a love scene, a passionate scene ... because that is the main problem in homophobia," designer Elmgreen said. "You can get whatever rights, you can get acceptance on an abstract level, but they don't want to look at us."

Germany has allowed gay couples to seal their partnerships at registry offices since 2001, although the law stops short of offering formal marriage. Berlin has a large gay community, as do other major German cities such as Cologne and Hamburg.

The memorial to the Nazis' Jewish victims and the new monument will soon be joined by a third memorial, honoring the Roma and Sinti, or Gypsy, victims. Some 220,000 to 500,000 Gypsies were killed during the Holocaust.

Work begins this year on that memorial, also in Tiergarten park.

"We stand stunned before the brutality with which the Nazis threatened, persecuted and destroyed all those who did not correspond to their inhuman ideology," Neumann said.

"The experience of war and Holocaust, state terror and tyranny, puts on us Germans a special responsibility to protect freedom and human rights."

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