Compensation and Recognition of Homosexuals as Victims of Nazism in France

Résumé En

In this paper we would like to present the first results of some research in progress based on rediscovered French archival files concerning recognition procedures of « homosexuals » persecuted and deported during the Nazi Era. We will explore cultural, institutional and political limits to their inclusion into the category “Victims of Nazism” until today. In our paper, we would like to highlight two kinds of processes: the one concerning more broadly how States have constructed the category “victims of Nazism” in Western Europe and especially in France. Then, in a second part, we will focus on the new files we have found (analysis in progress) concerning compensation and individual recognition claims made by former deportees condemned for Homosexual behaviour in France during the Nazi occupation and annexation. In a third part of our presentation we will highlight the tension between individual and collective recognition forms in order to discuss LGBTQ memory and history on a European level.