Public book burnings typically illustrate extreme censorship related to political, cultural and religious materials. They often invoke historic atrocities such as burning of Jewish texts in Nazi Germany or racist bonfires by the Ku Klux Klan.
As it happens, the Nazis’ first book burnings were not of Jewish texts.
Well, the Nazis said they were; because they said everything they hated was “Jewish”.
But they weren’t Jewish religious or cultural books. They were what we’d now call LGBT+ books.
The Nazis’ first book burnings were of the books and materials of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sex Research), which advocated for sex education; and for tolerance of intersex, homosexual, and transgender people.
And that's why, despite there being a hundred years of research on trans people, nazis today still call gender affirming care "experimental". They burned the research once and they'll do it again, if we let them.
Yep. When allied troops freed concentration camps victims, they didn't free the LGBT+ people. Those who survived were still considered criminals by the allies so they remained imprisoned.
Berlin was the height of queer culture in the 20s and before. It took us almost a hundred years to rebuild a modicum of tolerance, let alone acceptance. That's why these regressive pieces of shit are frothing at the mouth to commit their genocides again.
It’s depressing to think how advanced we might have become as a society had Hitler and the Nazis never come into power. (To say nothing of all the people who wouldn’t have been killed.)
I wonder if we ever would have even developed nuclear weapons without the Manhattan Project and the urgency with which it operated. It certainly would have taken us a hell of a lot longer without all the “talent” we scraped up from the Nazis.
I was amazed by that too. My partner felt the same and remarked how relevant it is today. I think I will write it on the white board in the group room at work tomorrow.
Part of my job is providing education resources, like helping adults who experience homelessness, drug addiction, or prison enroll for GED classes, some of them do need multiple attempts at the tests before passing but they have almost all been kind and good people. I live in Texas and republican propaganda runs deep here, I know relatively well educated people that believe lgbtq+ people are infiltrating school systems and indoctrinating children with the woke agenda.
You're right, I apologize, I shouldn't have been glib about the GED and the unique life experiences that make it a useful tool for many. I was too eager to take a shot at Boebert and her fellow wilfully ignorant. Sorry, I'll edit.
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