History : THE PINK
TRIANGLE COALITION 
The Pink
Triangle Coalition is an "international coalition for co-ordinating
affairs relating to the Nazi persecution of homosexuals."1 The initiative
to set up this coalition dates back to 1997 when the Swiss government,
in co-operation with Swiss companies and banks, established the Swiss
Humanitarian Fund in the amount of 265 million Swiss francs, to be distributed
to needy survivors of the Holocaust regardless of the reason for their
persecution.
The Swiss
gay organisation Pink Cross obtained a seat on the advisory board of the
fund, and made efforts to spread information about the fund and to reach
out to gay and lesbian survivors of Nazi persecution. For that purpose,
groups and individuals were contacted who had experience in compensation
issues or who knew survivors. In October 1997, a first telephone conference
with interested individuals was held. Eleven survivors were finally traced
but only seven agreed to file applications to the Swiss fund; each of
them later received the equivalent of U.S. $ 1,300.
Only two
months later, an important event took place: In December 1997, governments
from 23 countries met in London to discuss how to deal with the remaining
monies that the so-called Tri-Partite Gold Commission had reclaimed from
the Nazis at the end of World War II. As a result of the London conference,
the International Nazi Persecutee Relief Fund was created to provide grants
in support of public education about Nazi atrocities and to aid activities
of remembrance of those persecuted by the Nazis. A representative of the
as-yet informal group that would become the Pink Triangle Coalition was
officially in attendance at the conference, and a paper authored by the
coalition was published in the proceedings.
In February
1998, the coalition was finally formalised at a meeting in Berlin, at
which time the name Pink Triangle Coalition (PTC) was adopted. The mandate
of the coalition is two-fold:
-- To ensure
representation of the homosexual victims of the Nazis vis-à-vis
the various new international funds that have been created with a view
to maximising resources for educational projects and ensuring fair distribution
of any such resources.2
-- To collect
and disseminate information about Nazi persecution of gay men and lesbians
with a view to involving additional non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
in the efforts pursued by the coalition and facilitating a structured
approach.3
Membership
in the coalition is limited to international gay and lesbian NGOs and
national organisations with particular experience in working on compensation
issues or with relationships to the currently existing funds.
The PTC's
first proposals under the International Nazi Persecutee Relief Fund went
to the Dutch government, which rejected them in June 2000. Subsequently,
in early 2001, the Dutch government granted almost 1.6 million euros from
other funds for research, documentation and exhibition projects on the
Nazi persecution of homosexuals.
The government
of the United Kingdom also turned down a proposal. In 2000, the government
of the United States allocated, from its portion of the International
Nazi Persecutee Relief Fund, U.S. $ 70,000 for the PTC to redistribute
to the seven gay survivors mentioned above and for a Berlin-based research
project to help uncover additional survivors.
In May 2001,
the PTC received its largest allocation to date: U.S. $ 528,000, again
from the U.S. share of the fund. This amount is being distributed to one
international project and to two projects in Germany. One project will
ensure that Paragraph 175, a recent documentary film by Academy Award-winning
directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, will be seen and discussed
around the world (http://www.tellingpix.com).
A second
project will create "virtual" and real memorials to homosexuals
killed by the Nazis as well as to homosexual institutions destroyed by
the regime. These memorials will be in the form of a museum exhibition
at the Schwules Museum in Berlin (http://www.schwulesmuseum.de), along
with a CD-ROM and an Internet site for educational uses. A third project
will publish a memorial book with the names of gay men and lesbians in
Berlin who were murdered by the Nazis. The two German projects will be
carried out by the Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft (http://me.in-berlin.de/~hirschfeld/).
Also this
year, 65,000 euros were secured from the Austrian portion of the International
Nazi Persecutee Relief Fund for two gay and lesbian projects.
Swiss Banks Litigation
After a
class action lawsuit had been filed against Swiss banks, centred around
the allegation that they failed to return more than 50,000 accounts that
belonged to victims of the Nazis, these banks agreed to pay U.S. $ 1.25
billion to end the lawsuit. This settlement, known as the Holocaust Victim
Assets Litigation (Swiss Banks),4 also provides compensation for the banks'
unjust enrichment from assets the Nazis looted from victims or derived
from slave labour. The settlement is being administered by a U.S. court
in New York.
In 1999,
the U.S. court invited victims to come forward with individual claims.
PTC members also spread the information. In addition, in February 2000,
the PTC submitted a proposal for a so-called cy pres allocation. Since
only a very few gay and lesbian survivors of Nazi persecution are still
alive, the PTC asked, on behalf of this victim group, for one percent
of the total settlement funds and proposed to set up a foundation which
then would distribute the money to support specific activities.
In June
2001, the PTC learned that far fewer individuals than predicted had submitted
claims under the litigation. As a result, the amount of unclaimed funds
is much higher than expected. The court will distribute this money in
the form of cy pres allocations to organisations representing the classes
of victims named in the settlement. The PTC also was informed that its
earlier application should be amended with additional documentation. In
its revised submission, the PTC included the New York-based Astraea Lesbian
Action Foundation as proposed administrator for the requested PTC fund.
On 9 August
2001, the Pink Triangle Coalition met in New York with the special master
whom the U.S. court has appointed to recommend a plan of allocation for
the unclaimed funds in the Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation. Seven representatives
of the PTC personally presented the proposal and substantiated the reasons
for it in a private discussion with the special master and his staff.
The court is expected to receive and act upon the special master's recommendations
early in 2002.
The PTC proposed to use the cy pres allocation it has requested to meet
four goals: providing material assistance to gay and lesbian survivors;
supporting scholarly research; promoting education and public history
projects, including monuments; and advancing efforts to prevent anti-homosexual
persecution throughout the world today. If the PTC succeeds in receiving
one percent of the total settlement funds in the Swiss bank litigation,
the amount (approximately U.S. $12.5 million) would be the largest single
sum ever made available in support of the gay and lesbian community.
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