On this day in queerstory: honoring queer victims of Auschwitz

January 27 is a date already heavy with documentation. It appears in records of liberation, testimony, and legal reckoning—and queer history runs straight through it, even when it was never meant to be preserved.

On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau. Among those imprisoned and murdered by the Nazi regime were thousands of people targeted under Paragraph 175, the German law criminalising sex between men. Queer prisoners were marked with pink triangles, subjected to extreme violence, and often excluded from postwar recognition and reparations. For decades, January 27 memorials erased them. It would take sustained activism to force their inclusion into Holocaust remembrance, and even longer for some governments to acknowledge responsibility.

That reckoning began to shift on January 27, 1985, when West German activists used the 40th anniversary of liberation to publicly demand recognition of homosexual victims of Nazism. The protests and statements challenged official ceremonies that spoke of “victims” while excluding those still criminalised under the same law that had sent them to camps. Paragraph 175 remained on the books. January 27 made that contradiction impossible to ignore.

On January 27, 1994, Germany finally fully repealed Paragraph 175, eliminating the last remnants of the law that had survived both the Nazi regime and the postwar democratic state. The repeal aligned with broader legal reforms following reunification, but the date carried symbolic weight. A law used to justify incarceration, medical abuse, and murder was formally ended on a day already defined by remembrance.

January 27 has also been used to challenge institutional silence elsewhere. On January 27, 1998, LGBTQ+ organisations in Austria submitted legal challenges against discriminatory age-of-consent laws, explicitly referencing Austria’s failure to reckon with its Nazi-era persecution of queer people. The cases would eventually succeed, but January 27 framed them as unfinished historical business rather than modern policy disputes.

In Israel on January 27, 2000, queer activists participated in Holocaust Remembrance Day events carrying pink triangle insignia, insisting on visibility within national memory. The actions were controversial, drawing accusations of provocation, but they forced public discussion about queer suffering under fascism and the selective nature of remembrance.

On January 27, 2003, the European Parliament held sessions marking Holocaust remembrance, during which several members explicitly referenced the persecution of LGBTQ+ people under Nazism. While largely symbolic, the statements entered official parliamentary records and were later cited in debates on hate crime legislation and education mandates across member states.

January 27 also appears in the modern human rights record. On January 27, 2011, advocacy groups submitted documentation to the United Nations detailing the continued use of Nazi-era morality laws in parts of Europe and beyond. The reports drew direct lines between historical persecution and contemporary criminalisation, challenging the idea that such laws were culturally neutral or benign.

In Poland on January 27, 2019, LGBTQ+ activists organised parallel commemorations highlighting both Holocaust remembrance and rising anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. The actions drew international attention and were met with police monitoring, reinforcing how memory itself can become a site of political conflict.

Across multiple countries, January 27 has increasingly been used to submit asylum claims and legal briefs referencing persecution tied to sexuality or gender identity, especially when linked to fascist or authoritarian violence. Courts and tribunals have cited the date’s historical significance when assessing the credibility and severity of claims.

January 27 exists in queer history as evidence—of who was targeted, who was erased, and who had to fight to be named. Liberation, repeal, testimony, filing. The date doesn’t offer closure. It keeps the record open.