Being Gay and Jewish in Cologne Germany

By Jeffrey Rosenberg

I hear the noise echoing on the cobblestones behind me.

"Click, Click, Click,"

Its sounds like hobnail boots following me down a darkened street.

"Click, Click, Click,"

As the sounds comes closes and closer I finally peek around over my shoulder to see a beautiful woman in fashionable heels, and it brings me to a sigh of relief.

There is a weird feeling upon first walking the streets of Germany as both a Jewish and Gay man. Just 60 years ago being who I am would label me a criminal. All the years of hearing about the atrocities the Nazi's committed are looming in the back of my head. Over 6 million Jews were murdered and over 100,000 gay men arrested, of which 5,000 to 15,000 were killed. This number ranges because there aren't full records of reason for internment as well as some of these prisoners were both Jewish and Gay.

To identify the Gay prisoners they were forced to wear a pink triangle, Jews wore a yellow Star of David. Even after the camps were liberated at the end of the Second World War, Gay prisoners were not acknowledged as victims of Nazi persecution and many were often simply re-imprisoned by the Allied-established Federal Republic of Germany. It wasn't until 1994 that the Nazi anti-gay law was repealed, although both East and West Germany liberalized their criminal laws against adult homosexuality in the late 1960s.

In 321 AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine issued an edict allowing Jews to be elected to the City Council. The first mob attack or pogrom against the Jews was in 1349. Throughout Europe they were used as scapegoats for the Black Death. By 1424 the Jews were evicted from the city of Cologne, but were allowed to return in 1798 after the French Revolution.

By 1933 when the Nazis came to power, the Jewish population of Cologne had grown to about 20,000. On November 8 and 9 in 1938, Cologne's 3 synagogues were set on fire and 40% of the city's Jews had emigrated by 1939. The majority of those who remained were later transported to the concentration camps by 1941. The fair grounds next to the Deutz train station were used to group together the Jewish population for deportation to the death camps and for disposal of their household goods by public sale.

I'm here in Cologne, Germany covering the Gay Games 2010. This gives me an opportunity to not only meet and report on extraordinary athletes from all over the world but also get a glimpse of how both the Jewish and the Gay communities exist in the Germany of today. You can currently read complete Gay Games 2010 coverage as well as follow my updates as I explore the city's of Cologne's Jewish and Gay communities today.