Last gay survivor of WWII camps dies

The person who is believed to be the last surviving man to be sent to a Nazi concentration camp because of his homosexuality has died at the age of 98.

Rudolpf Brazda was arrested by the Nazis in 1937 in the town of Meuselwitz, and after a month in custody was forced to confess to having “felt love for his friend” instead of “conquering his unnatural urges,” and sentenced to six months in prison. Four years later he was arrested again and sent to Buchenwald, where he stayed until liberation in 1945.

An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 gay men were sent to concentration camps.

Brazda was unknown until he came forward during the 2008 opening of a new memorial to homosexual survivors of the Nazis.

In 1934, three years before being arrested, he and his boyfriend held a wedding ceremony with his mother and sisters attending, and a fake priest presiding over the ceremony. — jta