Anyone know where I can find some? I’m curious to see what the originals looked like.
Heh…I realize there weren’t exactly a bunch of photographers running around but…who knows ^_~
This site has what you are looking for http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/hsx/
They didn’t wear arm bands though, if you look at the photos, you can see the triangle on their chest (it’s quite hard to notice though).
A more detailed description of the whole classification system, with the various colors & symbols used is available here.
But things I’ve read indicated that this rather detailed, complicated scheme was only partially followed, and especially toward the end of the war, often fell into disuse. And of course, this only applied to the portion of their victims who were kept as actual inmates in the concentration camps – most of the people sent there (young people, old people, disabled, anybody not strong enough to work) went directly to the execution chambers upon arrival at the camps. They didn’t survive their first day there.
They have on display at Dachau many of these colored symbols as well as a striped uniform. As I remember, the pink triangle is almost 3" tall - it would be pretty noticeable on a black and white shirt.
Slight hijack -
A few years ago a friend of mine and I were discussing the use of the pink triangle to identify homosexuals by the Nazis. His girlfriend, a bit of a dim bulb, found this very interesting, asking “so gay Nazis wore pink triangles on their uniforms?”
:smack: