MovieChat Forums > The Strain (2014) Discussion > red or pink triangle on the prisoners

red or pink triangle on the prisoners

posted 8 years ago by RaisingRlyeh
3 replies | jump to latest

In last nights episode the prisoners that fet's grandfather was supposed to shoot had two triangles on them. I know the yellow is for being a Jew and it looked like either a red or pink star for the second part of the star. Not that it's a big deal, but just curious if they were gay Jews or communist Jews.

[–] jptrugger-84-585771 8 years ago

The yellow one is for Jews, with the red superimposed over yellow for Jewish political prisoners. I think we saw both types in those brief scenes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badge

[–] Kris_AB 8 years ago

Yeah, I noticed three different types of badges in the most prominent shot of just four concentration camp extras and wondered if that would've been a realistic mix/a likely ratio to witness, or if it was the show trying a bit too hard to include all the targeted types. Was honestly surprised to see a pink triangle in there, as proportionately, those imprisoned for being gay were much more rare than Jewish prisoners. I couldn't tell, either, if the extra wearing the pink triangle was just a tall sort of androgynous-looking young woman, or a feminine-looking young guy (not that it matters -- just that I was looking and couldn't tell).

[–] Nethlem 8 years ago

Was honestly surprised to see a pink triangle in there, as proportionately, those imprisoned for being gay were much more rare than Jewish prisoners.

I'm not sure how useful it is to look for "realism" in a show about worms turning people into zombie-vampires and its take on the Third Reich.

But imho it's actually quite nice of them to acknowledge the pink triangle because unlike other victims of the Nazi regime it took several decades until homosexuals got acknowledged as victims of Nazi persecution. Unlike all the other KZ prisoners, many of the homosexuals were forced to finish their sentences after being "liberated" by the allied forces, regardless of how much time they already spent in the camps, as the Allied Military Government didn't repeal anything about the §175 law the Nazis revisioned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragraph_175#Historical_overview

Also: Contrary to popular belief the Nazis didn't start out with large scale persecution of Jews, they started out by persecuting their political opposition. Mainly members of the KPD (Communist Party Germany deemed responsible for the Reichtagsbrand), actual socialists and union leaders, pretty much everything "leftist", if those people happened to be Jewish it was just "icing on the cake" to the Nazis. You didn't need to be a Jew to end up in a KZ, many different non-Jewish groups of people ended up there.