OVERLAPPING
TRIANGLES
THEMES & GOALS
Overlapping Triangles brings to light hidden histories
of the Roma, Jewish, disabled, homosexual, political,
and many other victims of the Nazi regime.
Overlapping Triangles is a collection of educational content,
activities, exhibitions, and interactive stories for classrooms and communities,
as well as materials for teachers and informal educators.
On this page:
THE VICTIMS & TARGETS OF NAZISM
EDUCATIONAL GOALS
HISTORICAL OBJECTIVES
SILENCING
of the Roma, Jewish, disabled, homosexual, political,
and many other victims of the Nazi regime.
Overlapping Triangles is a collection of educational content,
activities, exhibitions, and interactive stories for classrooms and communities,
as well as materials for teachers and informal educators.
On this page:
THE VICTIMS & TARGETS OF NAZISM
EDUCATIONAL GOALS
HISTORICAL OBJECTIVES
SILENCING
THE VICTIMS & TARGETS OF NAZISM
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Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi regime and its collaborators persecuted - for distinct reasons and in distinct ways - many groups of people, including*: people of African descent; alcoholics; people of so-called Asiatic descent; dissenting clergy, including Catholic clergy and Lutheran clergy; criminals and perceived criminals; Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, and political dissidents; people with mental and physical disabilities, including children and adults with severe physical defects, people with so-called mental retardation, people with hereditary deafness, hereditary blindness, schizophrenia, epilepsy, so-called manic-depressive disorder, or other real and perceived disabilities; emigrants and foreign forced laborers; Freemasons; people experiencing homelessness; so-called intellectuals; Jehovah's Witnesses; Jewish people and people of Jewish descent; lesbians, bisexual women, and people we would today refer to as transgender men; so-called homosexuals and perceived homosexuals, including people we would today refer to as gay men, bisexual men, and transgender women; pacifists; people of Polish descent; so-called prostitutes; Roma people, and people of Sinti and Romani descent, as well as other so-called Gypsies; people of Slavic descent; Soviet prisoners of war; trade unionists; women; and so-called useless eaters, including some geriatrics, bombing victims, and injured German soldiers.
*This list is not exhaustive. PRISONER CLASSIFICATION IN NAZI CAMPS
View a chart of prisoner markings used in some German concentration camps. Dachau, Germany, ca. 1938-1942 (KZ Gedenkstaette Dachau). View Artifact on the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. |
EDUCATIONAL GOALS
Overlapping Triangles helps educators and learners to achieve the following goals:
Overlapping Triangles helps educators and learners to achieve the following goals:
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HISTORICAL OBJECTIVES
Overlapping Triangles supports learners in exploring the following historical content:
Overlapping Triangles supports learners in exploring the following historical content:
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a. NAZI OBJECTIVES
While an objective of the Nazi regime was to wipe out the Jewish people and Jewish culture across Europe, the Nazis’ broader intention was to perpetuate their so-called master Aryan race by eliminating all persons they perceived as a threat to its advancement. b. NAZI POLICY & ACTION The Nazis’ beliefs and policies pertaining to specific communities and people were built on enduring forms of prejudice in Germany and across Europe. These prejudices led the Nazi regime and its collaborators to perpetrate specific forms of persecution and genocide. c. INTERDEPENDENCY OF VICTIMHOODS The narratives of the Nazis’ victims are interdependent. For example, the Nazis’ gassing of the disabled, as well as their use of Zyklon B to murder Soviet Prisoners of War, became a testing ground for the efficient mass-murder by gas of the Jews, Roma and Sinti that followed. d. VICTIM EXPERIENCES Jewish, Roma, disabled, homosexual, political and many other victim experiences overlapped and intersected in important ways. For example, different target communities shared the same ghettos, the same concentration camps, the same gas chambers and the same mass graves. e. OVERLAPPING TRIANGLES The Nazis used overlapping triangles, and other methods of sorting, to categorize some individuals under multiple groups. For example, in some concentration camps, some men whom the Nazis identified as both Jewish and homosexual were forced to wear a pink triangle over a yellow triangle, to form a pink and yellow star. f. VICTIM IDENTITIES Although the Nazis targeted particular groups of people for specific reasons and in particular ways, the identity of each individual was much more complex than the Nazis’ categorizations supposed. g. INTERNATIONAL BYSTANDERISM The international community did not do enough to help the targets of the Nazi regime. When we question how and why the world did little to help the different victims of Nazism, we are able to consider the broader implications of international bystanderism toward different minority groups, in the past and today. h. ONGOING PERSECUTION Many of the communities persecuted under Nazism continue to face government-led discrimination and violence today. Many of these ongoing oppressions can be traced back directly to the Nazis' persecution of these communities. |
SILENCING
Why and how do we forget some histories?
A number of factors - some visible, some invisible - have led to
the exclusion and marginalization of some Holocaust victim narratives:
Why and how do we forget some histories?
A number of factors - some visible, some invisible - have led to
the exclusion and marginalization of some Holocaust victim narratives:
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INSTITUTIONAL SILENCING
Denial of Rights & Criminalization Genocide Denial The Destruction & Concealment of Evidence Intentional Distortion of History Denial of Reparations Denied & Delayed Recognition of Victimhood Exclusion from Commemoration Exclusion from Education Continued Persecution CULTURAL SILENCING Taboos Collective Forgetting Limited Advocacy & Political Capital Limited Cultural Representations Competitive Victimhood Fear of Being Forgotten Fear of Continued Persecution PERSONAL SILENCING Prejudice Shame & Psychological Suppression Intergenerational Trauma Apathy |