By Sarah Campbell, 2022
At the very moment of uprising at the 28 July 1969 Stonewall riots, protestors invoked the Nazi persecution of LGBTQ+ individuals as historical precedent to their own oppression, creating a direct link from 1930s Germany to 1960s America and the birthplace of the Gay Liberation movement. Using the New York Daily News’ 7 July 1969 coverage of the Stonewall riots and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s oral history of Harry Pauly, a gay concentration camp survivor, as entry points, this article seeks to examine the historical similarities between these two periods of LGBTQ+ oppression, and the individuals that fought to overcome it.
