In 2010 my husband and I, took our 3 nieces to Berlin and visited Sachsenhausen death camp where over 6000 Gays were killed. Under article 175 of the penal code they were arrested by the SS. The irony, is the niece that grabbed my hand and said; “uncle it will be ok” while I was sobbing, came out of the closet as lesbian years later. I will never forget.

They came in the night

As I walked thought the gates of this horrible place

Wondering how many like me had marched, on their untimely fait

As the SS came, sweeping homes in the night

To take gays away to an unknown site

A place far away, so cold and grey

When lovers are separated so quickly, what could they say?

Could love be such a crime that you would murder for the third Reich?

As hands crossed hands, and eyes met eyes

Station Z became the final stop for those who refused to lie

As my feet walked along the camp of others destiny

How many before me had given up their dreams of hope and liberty

Sitting night by night, day by day

Listing to the screams and the tears of other gays

Do I run far away, or be shot while I stay

Do I hang by my wrist or die in the clay,

The brickyards are harsh and three months is the promise

But the lie they don’t tell, is that it ends in blood, bullets and darkness

The loneliness would be worse than the branding

The heartache would kill you more than anything I could imagine

As I walked through the gates and saw the memorial plaque,

It was hard to walk on, without turning my back

the Homosexual spirits of Sachsenhausen continue to endeavor

With my promise secured to forget, but never

as I walked past the gates of this horrible place

their voices must live on today and forever,

as liberty for them came all but too late

Carl Meadows Jr,

September 12, 2010