Inspirational Passage of the Day
Second, criminals wore green triangles. Green triangles were given to who had done minor crimes (“Color-Coded Holy Wars”). Crimes such as violating drug laws there was only about 12 percent of criminals.
Third, homosexuals wore pink triangles. Pink triangles were given to male prisoners who were sent because of their homosexuality (Safier). The color pink was easily recognized so many people humiliated them everyday (“Triangles”). But also a lot of people thought that homosexuality was contagious, but still curable (Elman).
Fourth, the Roma gypsies wore black triangles (“Dachau”). The crippled, disabled, homeless, and lesbians were also considered as the black triangle group. The groups like alcoholics, prostitutes, and work shy’s were also considered as black triangles, but there were mostly mentally retarded or had mental retardation
Fifth, The Jehovah’s Witness or bible researchers were given purple triangles. The Nazi’s had a hard time finding a group for these people. They couldn’t be counted as criminals or political prisoners, so they made a new a new group called the Jehovah’s Witness’s group (Friedlander).
Sixth, the Jews wore the yellow Star of David. The yellow star also had the word Jude written on it. The Jews felt so humiliated by having to wear the yellow triangle everyday, but they had no choice they had to wear it or they would face the consequences (Rosenberg).
Lastly blue for emigrant there were very few emigrants in Dachau Concentration camp (“Stars, Triangles, and Markings”).
If you forgot to wear the triangle would face the consequences. If they forget to wear their badges they were beaten to death. So they had signs reminding them to wear their badges where ever they were. But why would they not want to wear the badge? Sometimes they might forget but wouldn’t they have a real reason why? These badges weren’t just badges to tell each people apart they represented more then humiliation and shame it represented fear Rosenberg). The lowest rank was the Jews who felt humiliated everyday. Above them were the antisocial, criminals, gypsies, emigrants, political prisoners. Then the Jehovah’s Witness were the highest ranking (Schwartz).
As you can see this color system gave many nightmares to many people’s lives, making them suffer through humiliations and laughter. For the Nazi officers it made their life easier by seeing who’s who by the color coded triangles instead of asking them individually.