Political Notebook: Book examines intersection of the Holocaust and US LGBTQ movement

From the start of the Nazi persecution of homosexuals in 1933, the atrocities Adolph Hitler and his regime waged against LGBTQ Germans and others has impacted the LGBTQ community in America. Long before the Stonewall riots in New York City of 1969, the horrors unleashed by the Nazis were central to the fight for LGBTQ rights in the U.S.

So argues THOMAS R. DUNN, founder and director of the Queer Memory Project of Northern Colorado, in his new book “The Pink Scar: How Nazi Persecution Shaped the Struggle for LGBTQ+ Rights.” It will be released October 21 by Penn State University Press as the first book in its Troubling Democracy series.

“I am not writing about democracy, per se, but am happy to be part of that conversation,” said Dunn, 45, a gay man who is an associate professor of commun