• Out, Loud and Proud receive a Heart of Equality Award Out, Loud and Proud made their public debut at ...

This project focuses on LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) heritage and the impact of World War II and the holocaust on the LGBT community.

The Gay Holocaust

Persecution of homosexuals in Germany began before the Second World War with a pre-existing law strengthened in 1935.  However, immediately the Nazis took power, Hitler declared the eradication of homosexuality and implemented a broad range of persecutory measures.

An estimated 50,000 gay men were sentenced and imprisoned, some of whom faced the death penalty. Up to 15,000 gay men were confined in concentration camps and made to wear the pink triangle symbol which identified them as homosexuals. Many of these Pink Triangle detainees, as they were known, were subjected to starvation, hard labour, castration, medical experiments and then death. Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January each year remembers these victims as part of the Holocaust atrocities. (Courtesy of Stonewall, www.stonewall.org.uk).

LGBT Youth Project

Surrey Heritage and Nikki Parkhill, Surrey County Council's Youth Development Worker - LGBTQ, are working with a group of 4 young people to plan an exciting residential project for 12 other young people which will happen in 2011.

The young people will be travelling to Krakow, Berlin and Amsterdam and visiting the only 2 LGBT memorials in the world. When they return, they will putting together workshops and information packs for schools to use in history and citizenship lessons in conjunction with Holocaust Memorial day in January 2011. They will also be working with Surrey Heritage to add their work to the LGBT archive there and establish an Oral story of young LGBT people in Surrey.

Interested in finding out more? Contact:

Nikki Parkhill
Youth Development Worker - LGBTQ
07976 974742

Surrey Youth Development Service
Quadrant Court
35 Guildford Road
Woking
GU22 7QQ

The charity Gay Surrey has deposited their archives with Surrey History Centre. Find out more about their work.

Click here to see a pdf () copy of an LGBT bibliography listing a range of published works held at Surrey History Centre.

Other more recent famous gay Surrey residents include:

Kenny Everett (born Maurice James Christopher Cole) – the comedian spent much of his childhood at a children's home in Peper Harrow.
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight) - former resident of 'Hercules' located on the Wentworth estate, Virginia Water.
Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara) – front man of rock band Queen and one-time resident of St George's Hill, Weybridge.
Brian Paddick - former Deputy Assistant Commissioner in London's Metropolitan Police Service, mayoral candidate for London (2008) and contestant on I'm a Celebrity get me out of here (2008), was born in Balham and attended Sutton Manor High School for Boys.

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