Rudolf Brazda, 97, is the last survivor of the approximately 10,000 homosexuals interned in Nazi concentration camps. For this reason, he was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, the highest award granted in France, a country in which they lived for more than 50 years. President Nicolas Sarkozy who proposed to Brazda to be granted the award received.
Brazda spent three years in the Buchenwald concentration center in Germany, with registration number 7592 and the "pink triangle" with the Nazis to identify homosexuals. Kept secret of his personal history until, in 2008, he published his autobiography entitled "Pink Triangle, a gay man in a Nazi concentration camp," written by Jean-Luc Schwaub.
Brazda was 20 when Hitler came to power and had lived their sexual orientation openly, until the Nazis tightened the infamous 'Paragraph 175', the law criminalizing homosexuality. After two stays in prison, was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. Although Buchenwald was not an extermination camp, some 56,000 of the 238,000 prisoners who were jailed death found there, run, sick or sheer exhaustion.
To make matters worse, gay prisoners also had to endure the scorn of other prisoners, occupying the lowest place. And what is even more terrible, when the Allies liberated the camps, many homosexuals remained prisoners or prisoners were forced to remain silent about their experience because homosexuality remained criminalized in many countries. After his release
Brazda was established in France, where he managed to find some peace with his partner for 50 years.
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