Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 10:24:50 -0400 From: Tom Hoemig Subject: LESBIANS AND GAYS URGE SWISS BANKS TO CONSIDER HOMOSEXUAL HOLOCAUST International Lesbian and Gay Association Administrative Office Kolenmarkt, 81 · B-1000 - Brussels · Belgium Phone & fax: + 32 2 502 24 71 · E-mail: ilga@ilga.org Date: July 29, 1997 LESBIANS AND GAYS URGE SWISS BANKS TO CONSIDER HOMOSEXUAL HOLOCAUST Co-Secretaries General of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), Jordi Petit in Barcelona and Jennifer Wilson in Sidney, request that the Swiss Banker' Association (ABS in the French equivalent) support the fight against AIDS in the homosexual community, in memory of the thousands of murders and deportations during the Nazi regime on grounds of sexual orientation. Female victims were marked with a black triangle and men with a pink triangle. The Swiss banks have revealed a series of "dormant" accounts belonging to people fleeing from, or just afraid of, the Nazi regime. ILGA wishes to point out that gypsies, Spanish republicans and homosexuals were also persecuted, as well as Jews. Figures from the Red Cross and the protestant Church of Austria in the 1940s suggest a total of around 350,000 homosexual victims. Following the ABS's decision on un-inherited funds, to distribute them amongst charitable organisations designated by Jewish associations, ILGA, with all due respect and solidarity for the Jewish people, proposes that other persecuted minorities also be taken into consideration. Minorities such as gypsies and homosexuals have never received compensation from the German State. It's high time that Germany, as a State, raise an official monument in memory of the homosexual holocaust. Clearly, the people who hid their savings from the Nazis in Swiss banks are non other than those persecuted by that regime: Jews, homosexuals, democrats, gypsies, etc. The coherent course of action to be taken with unclaimed funds would be their use in benefit of those persecuted groups in just proportion. ILGA Communication Media Committee