The only memorial of its kind
In America, the only city to publicly honor gay people imprisoned and killed by the Nazis during World War II is San Francisco. At the intersection of 17th and Market Streets, in the Castro District, you’ll find the 3,000-square-foot Pink Triangle Park. It is both somber and strange, but also visually memorable. This small patch of greenery contains 15 triangular stone columns, one for every thousand members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community who perished. The shape of the columns symbolizes the pink triangles sewn on the clothes of “the accused.” The sculptures were created by local artists Susan Martin and Robert Bruce. Each five-foot-tall pylon is composed of Sierra granite.
The park was dedicated in 2001 by a local neighborhood association that wanted to establish “a physical reminder of how the persecution of any individual or single group of people damages all humanity.” It has become a signature landmark of the Castro, which became a gay district in the 1970s. It was during World War II that San Francisco saw a significant increase to its gay population, following the dishonorable discharge of thousands of servicemen bound for the Pacific.
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Address Market Street & 17th Street, San Francisco, CA, 94114, pinktrianglepark.org | Public Transport Streetcar: F-Line (17th St & Castro St stop) | Tip Another solemn spot that offers a chance for reflection and remembrance is the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park on Bowling Green Drive.
Between 1933 and 1945, an estimated 100,000 gay men were arrested throughout Germany and Austria on charges of homosexuality. Half of those were prosecuted; and of that number between 5,000 and 15,000 were dispatched to concentration camps. This atrocity was often unacknowledged in any country after the war, but in 2002 the German government publicly apologized to the gay community.
Once a year, during the San Francisco Pride weekend in June, a one-acre pink triangle made up of dozens of pieces of blush-colored canvas unfolds on the north side of the Twin Peaks, proudly facing the Castro district and downtown San Francisco.
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