Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo (fourth from the right), French artist Jean-Luc Verna (fifth from the right) and Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of memory Laurence Patrice (fifth from the left) pose for a photograph during the inauguration of the "Aux oubliés et oubliées" (To the Forgotten) on International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia in the gardens of the Port de l'Arsenal in Paris on May 17, 2025.KIRAN RIDLEY/AFP via Getty Images
[Europe · Paris, France] On May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, the city of Paris formally dedicated a new public memorial to the LGBTQ+ victims of historical persecution, including those who suffered under the Nazi regime and those who endured discrimination and violence across different periods of French history. The unveiling ceremony was presided over by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and took place near the Bastille and the Bassin de l'Arsenal.
The memorial specifically honours those who were killed in Nazi concentration camps or by summary execution, as well as individuals deported from France on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. During the Second World War, LGBTQ+ individuals targeted by the Nazi regime were compelled to wear a pink triangle as a identifying marker — a direct parallel to the yellow star imposed upon Jewish communities — reflecting the systematic classification and persecution of multiple groups under Nazi rule. The broader toll of the Holocaust and associated atrocities encompasses more than six million Jewish victims alongside millions of others, including LGBTQ+ individuals, political prisoners, Roma, and prisoners of war.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mayor Hidalgo articulated the civic and moral imperative that motivated the memorial's creation. History, she said, exists to allow societies to prepare for the future, to prevent the worst from recurring, and to strive toward something better. She described it as essential that the recognition of this particular history, and the obligations it places on the present, be inscribed in Paris in a manner that was at once powerful, symbolic, and tangible.
The sculpture's dedicatory plaque offers a poetic account of its conceptual design. The work takes the form of a wand inserted into the ground — an object that, the plaque suggests, carries more than its fantastical associations imply. Like a memory one might wish to bury, it emerges from the earth as a summons to remembrance. Constructed in matte black stainless steel on one side and mirror-polished on the other, it simultaneously evokes the dark periods of history and the possibility of hope and light. Its inclination toward visitors means that the shadow it casts may be read either as a form of shelter or as a warning that history retains the capacity to repeat itself.
The installation of the memorial represents a formal act of public acknowledgement by one of Europe's major capital cities, incorporating a historically overlooked dimension of wartime persecution into the fabric of shared urban memory.
European Editorial Office: John
