Holocaust flags missing
450,000 gay victims ‘erased’

Skiff Staff

When Uniting Campus Ministries President Heather Patriacca noticed that the 75 pink flags, representing about 450,000 homosexuals persecuted during the Holocaust, had been removed from Sadler Hall lawn Thursday, she said she was outraged.

“What upsets me is that it’s almost like someone tried to erase a population with the removal of the flags,” she said.

Yvette Herrera/FEATURES EDITOR The 75 pink flags representing about 450,000 homosexuals persecuted during the Holocaust were stolen from the Sadler Hall lawn Thursday. New flags later replaced the ones that were stolen.

Patriacca said she noticed the flags were missing about 2 p.m., when she looked outside, but she has no idea when they were actually taken. One pink flag was found bent on the door of Reed Hall.

One of the goals of Holocaust Remembrance Week is to remind people that there are conflicts going on around the world where entire populations are being removed, she said.

“This is very upsetting,” Patriacca said. “It’s as if someone here was trying to say that homosexuals should be removed.”
Adam Butner-Burroughs, a sophomore religion and sociology major, said he was initially shocked that the flags were removed, but then was angry and hurt.

“On a campus like TCU there is a lot of apathy,” Butner-Burroughs said. “(In this case) what it takes to act out is not compassion, but bigotry and hatred and misunderstanding.”

Patriacca said the flags were temporarily replaced with a combination of pink flags and white flags with pink triangles. She said she would buy and replace the flags Thursday.

Butner-Burroughs helped put the flags back out on Sadler lawn. He said doing so made him feel better. Replacing the flags gave him an opportunity to take a more active role in fighting what happened, he said.

“I didn’t realize that things like this happen today,” Butner-Burroughs said. “People aren’t as apathetic as I thought.”

skiffletters@tcu.edu