I clicked on your story, Rachel, because of the subject. I wrote an article just a couple of weeks ago about the Weimar Republic and the fall of queer liberation in early 20th century Europe.

I’m glad to see more and more people remembering the fate of gay men in the camps and the significance of the pink triangle.

When I was a member of Act Up and Queer Nation in the 1990s, I wore that triangle with pride.

I’m especially happy, though, to see you mention Richard Plant. I had the distinct pleasure of getting to know Richard in the early 1990s when he used to frequent the garden at the 13th Street LGBTQ center in Greenwich Village.

His book was seminal, and brought memories of the pink triangle and the camps into the popular imagination of queer people everywhere. As a work of history, Richard’s book has been somewhat superseded by more recent scholarship, but it moved a generation and inspired a tremendous amount of activism.

I’m so happy to see people still reading it! I’m sure Richard would be too. He was a very modest, soft-spoken man, and rarely talked about his book, but I could tell that he was pleased to have been able to make a contribution.