Editor:

I am writing in response to Adam Benson’s Feb. 23 column (“Utah: The next Auschwitz?”). I am very sympathetic to Benson’s loss of family members during the Holocaust. However, I think that he forgets the thousands of homosexuals who were also exterminated during the Final Solution of the Third Reich. I suspect he does not understand where the Gay symbol of the Pink Triangle came from. Homosexuals were forced to wear a pink triangle, as were Jews a yellow star of David. Benson, I don’t think Wolfe was trivializing your family experience with the horror of Auschwitz. Please don’t trivialize ours, either.

And one more thing, Benson: When your people were freed from the camps, homosexuals were still considered criminal and were considered deserving of what they got. I have been homosexual all my life, as you have been a Jew, and I resent the “lavender” insinuation.

Ben Williams

Utah Stonewall Historical Society