Pink triangle

Tonight I returned to the Cochrane Theatre for the Graeae Theatre Company's production of Bent. Quite an extraordinary performance about the treatment of gay men during the Holocaust. At the heart of the drama is the surprising love story that unfolds in the camp of Dachau.

So hidden was this history even as late as the 1970s, when this play was written, that the librarian who helped playwright Martin Sherman research it assumed he was interested in Nazis as homosexuals.

When the play premiered at the Royal Court in 1979, uproar ensued because, Sherman says, "people didn't realise that this had happened and thought I was making it up, or were offended that I had brought it up." Things have changed 25 years on and as Ian McKellen, who was in the original cast, pointed out, "The play educated the world about the pink triangle."

As most people know by now, the Nazis classified people in the camps with symbols. The yellow Star of David for Jews, a red badge for political prisoners, green for criminals, black for Roma, purple for Jehovah's Witnesses and the pink triangle for gay men.

A moving production, made even more powerful for its use of disabled artists and seamless integration of sign language.

Related links:
+ Homosexuals in Nazi Germany
+ What happened to lesbians under the Nazis?