Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit (who happens to be gay) and Culture Minister of the Federal Republic Bernd Neumann recently unveiled a memorial to the gay people murdered by the Third Reich near the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe that opened a few years ago just south of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Via Radley Balko, who has an adaptation of the famous Martin Niemöller lines appropriate for the occasion, this small act of decency by the people and city of Berlin has Michael Medved incensed:

Across the road from Berlin’s monument to Jewish HolocaustBerlin's Holocaust Memorial: Aerial view victims, the new shrine features a pavilion-sized concrete slab with a window through which visitors view a video of two men kissing. This commemoration follows a longstanding, misleading attempt to depict homosexuals as prime targets of Hitler. In fact, even historical material released with the memorial noted only "an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 gay men deported to concentration camps"–and by no means all of them were killed. While homosexuals surely outnumbered the less-than-one-percent of the German population that was Jewish, Jewish victims of Nazi death camps outnumbered estimated gay victims by more than 500 to 1. Persecution of any group deserves condemnation and remembrance, but it's wrong to exaggerate the extent of victimization for politically correct P.R. purposes.

More succinctly: fags have cooties. In addition to its loathsome downplaying of the scale and natureMemorial For Gay Holocaust Victims of Nazi war crimes against the gay populations of Germany and its captive nations, in addition to its perhaps even more loathsome attempt to lay proprietary claim to the Holocaust, this passage is grossly misleading about the monument. The memorial for Jewish victims of the Holocaust (see aerial view above) takes up a large city block in Berlin and is composed of 2711 "stelae." The memorial for gay victims of the Holocaust (see right) is one single slab four meters high. By Medved's grim, cynical arithmetic, the twin Berlin monuments overstate the relative toll of the Holocaust on Jews by a ratio of more than 5 to 1. Medved cannot possibly sincerely believe this memorial "exaggerates" the extent of the victimization of gay people during the Holocaust --- not if he knows what "to exaggerate" means. Notwithstanding his empty lip service to the notion that "persecution of any group deserves condemnation and remembrance," Medved's problem is with any recognition of Nazi atrocities inflicted on gay people as a part of the Holocaust. In other words, he's a sad old bigot for whom the Holocaust isn't a crime but a trophy to be fought over.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day we tend to focus on the six million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis. We read from Night, sing that song by Hannah Szenes, and light six Memorial candles for the nearly two thirds of Europe’s Jewish population who were systematically wiped out by the Nazis. It’s important to remember that Jews bore the brunt of the Nazis wrath, but also that they were far from the only group singled out.
Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi: the retired managing editor of Ebony magazine was born in Germany and narrowly escaped being sent to a concentration camp with his mother
Homosexuals, Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Romani Gypsies, blacks, and all kinds of political dissidents were also sent to concentration camps and murdered in large numbers. In total, an estimated 5 million non-Jews were killed by the Nazis. Civilian deaths in Europe add many more millions to that number.

A lot of Jewish discourse about the Holocaust rightly focuses on the great Jewish suffering and loss. The other groups who were persecuted, put in camps and executed are generally glossed over, an after-thought to our own grief. It’s natural that we should focus on the community that is closest to us, and that we would fixate on our own families and the stories of those we are familiar with. But the five million others who died deserve more than lip service, more than a footnote.

Related: Third Generation Descendants of Holocaust Survivors and the Future of Remembering