January 11, 2008
The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) reacted today to news of vandalism in San Francisco’s Pink Triangle Park, a memorial to the 15,000 homosexual victims of Nazi persecution and murder during World War II.
JCRC President Cheryl L. Feiner explained “The Nazi murder of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust was accompanied by mass atrocities committed against some 3 million others, including gays, Catholics, Roma, Soviets, Poles, and the disabled. Pink Triangle Park is San Francisco’s important preservation of the memory of those gays and lesbians who were oppressed and killed because of their sexual orientation.” The Jewish Community Relations Council supports law enforcement’s full investigation of this incident.
JCRC Executive Director Rabbi Douglas Kahn stated “The desecration of the memorial with Nazi symbols is deeply offensive to the Jewish community. Nearly one year ago, JCRC organized a delegation of Bay Area gays and lesbians to Israel. We stood together at Israel’s Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem honoring the memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and the murder of thousands of gays and lesbians. We are bound together in memory of man’s inhumanity, and today, we are bound together in our outrage over this hateful desecration.”
The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) is the central public affairs and community relations arm of the organized Jewish community. Representing more than 80 congregations and Jewish institutions throughout the Bay Area, JCRC promotes a just society and a secure Jewish future.