logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2023
8m 59s

Pink Triangles: Gay men in Nazi concentr...

Bbc World Service
About this episode

In 2009, Rudolf Brazda, one of the last known survivors of the Pink Triangles, returned to the former site of Buchenwald concentration camp where he’d been imprisoned during World War Two, for being gay in Nazi Germany.

In never previously broadcast recordings, taped by Jean-Luc Schwab, who wrote Rudolf’s biography, we hear Rudolf’s reaction to returning as a 95-year-old man.

Jean-Luc Schwab who became friends with Rudolf in the last few years of his life, speaks to Reena Stanton-Sharma.

This programme contains distressing details.

(Photo: Rudolf Brazda. Credit: Frederick Florin/ Getty Images)

Up next
Sep 2025
The Chindits
During World War Two, an unconventional special force was formed. Known as the Chindits, they fought behind enemy lines in Burma, now Myanmar during 1943 and 1944 in the war against Japan.Their leader was the charismatic Orde Wingate, a British Army officer. This programme is mad ... Show More
10m 19s
Aug 2025
Nagasaki bomb
On 9 August 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing at least 74,000 people. It led to the end of World War Two in Asia, with Japan surrendering to the Allies six days later. The Nagasaki bomb, alongside the Hiroshima bomb on 6 August, remain the ... Show More
10m 29s
Jun 2025
World War Two’s Rome escape line
Between September 1943 and June 1944 in World War Two, the Italian capital Rome was occupied by German soldiers.Italy had surrendered and thousands of Allied prisoners of war had escaped from internment camps in the country. An Irish priest, Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, who was wor ... Show More
10m 31s
Recommended Episodes
Jun 2024
A 21st-century Holocaust trial
In October 2019 Bruno Dey went on trial in Hamburg for his involvement in a horrific crime – 75 years after that crime had been committed. Dey was now an old man but in his youth he had served as a guard in Stutthof concentration camp, where thousands of people had been murdered ... Show More
33m 38s
Jan 2022
Surviving Auschwitz (Replay)
History repeats itself this week with an episode from the HISTORY This Week archives: January 27, 1945. Four Russian soldiers arrive at Auschwitz, one of Nazi Germany's largest concentration and extermination camps. The soldiers have come to liberate the survivors inside, but the ... Show More
26m 53s
Jul 2017
When Homosexuality Was a Crime
Comedian and broadcaster Pete Price speaks about being subjected to horrific aversion therapy to "cure" him of his homosexuality in 1960s Britain. Plus the 99-year-old former aide to the Chinese nationalist leader, Chiang Kai Shek, a radical new approach to housing in the former ... Show More
50m 36s
Oct 2025
Inside Concentration Camp Brothels
Even among Holocaust researchers, this subject is taboo. Starting in 1942, the Nazis set up brothels inside some of the camps, not for the guards, but for the prisoners.What was the point of these brothels? Who were the women forced to work there? And who were the prisoners who v ... Show More
45m 6s
Feb 2023
Bearing Witness: One Black Troop's Trip to Buchenwald
On this episode of Our American Stories, Rona Simmons, author of The Other Veterans Of World War II, Stories from Behind the Front Lines, tells the story of Bill Scott, an African American combat engineer and photographer from Alabama who became one of the "black angels" for pris ... Show More
20m 18s
Jan 2023
291: The Man Who Escaped Auschwitz
Tom and Dominic are joined by Jonathan Freedland to discuss the incredible story of Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler, who escaped from Auschwitz in April 1944. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand ... Show More
53m 20s
Sep 2023
The Nazi Massacre at Rumbula
<p>What would it be like to discover that your grandfather was a Nazi? For decades, generations of Germans have been grappling with the legacies of relatives who were part of the Third Reich. These legacies inspire feelings of tremendous guilt but also present an opportunity to a ... Show More
39m 10s
Apr 2023
Liberation of Dachau
A warning that this episode contains descriptions of genocide and terms for groups which were classified that way at the time.In April 1945, the 42nd Rainbow division liberated Dachau Concentration Camp. Having opened it's doors in 1933, it was the first, and longest running, Naz ... Show More
42m 21s
Jul 2022
The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich
British wrestler Hannah Taylor is a filmmaker, and a World War II history buff (thanks to her father), and made a short film about Auschwitz. Hannah took a small camera crew to Auschwitz, and describes what she observed and learned about the largest of the German operated concent ... Show More
56m 30s
Jan 2020
My story of magic, kindness and survival during the Holocaust
Holocaust survivor Werner Reich recounts his harrowing adolescence as a prisoner transported between concentration camps — and shares how a small, kind act can inspire a lifetime of compassion. "If you ever know somebody who needs help, if you know somebody who is scared, be kind ... Show More
10m 58s