'The day regularly began at 6am, or 5am in the summer, and in just half an hour we had to be washed, dressed and have our beds made up in military style. If you still had time, you could have breakfast, which meant a hurried slurping down the thin flour soup, hot or lukewarm, and eating your piece of bread. Then we had to form up in eights on the parade ground for morning roll call. Work followed, in winter from 7.30am to 5pm, and in summer from 7am to 8pm, with a half hour break at the workplace. After work, straight back to camp and immediate parade for evening roll-call.'
Heinz Heger (pseudonym), 'The Men with the Pink Triangle'

Hard work
Homosexuals were often given the most gruelling work to do in the camps and many died though exhaustion as a result. Forced to carry heavy boulders in quarries, many suffered terrible injuries as a result. Other jobs included moving meaningless quantities of stones for days on end from one side of the camp to the other in an SS attempt to break the 'homosexual spirit'. By 1943 the SS had begun the 'Extermination through work program', specifically designed to literally work homosexuals and criminals to death.

'In the morning we had to cart the snow outside our block from the left side of the road to the right side. In the afternoon we had to cart the same snow back from the right side to the left… …We had to shovel up the snow with our hands - our bare hands, as we didn't have any gloves. We worked in teams of two… …This mental and bodily torment lasted six days, until at last new pink-triangle prisoners were delivered to our block and took over for us. Our hands were cracked all over and half frozen off, and we had become dumb and indifferent slaves of the SS'.
Heinz Heger, 'The Men with the Pink Triangle'

Homosexual prisoners were generally referred to as Hundert-fünf-und-siebzig, meaning 175er's.

Gays were treated with particular contempt not only the SS but also by many of the other inmates, who regarded them as degenerate perverts. Life in the camps was a solitary existence making it hard to survive mentally for any period of time. In the face of such hatred and degradation, it is no surprise that many committed suicide by running into electric perimeter fences rather than face ongoing persecution.

Despite the hostility of many inmates in the camps some pink triangles did still manage to reach out and help others. For example, Kitty Fisher, a Jewish inmate sent to Auschwitz in 1944 at the age of 16, credits a pink triangle inmate for both her sisters' and her own survival. On arrival to the camp, a male prisoner, who had been at Auschwitz since 1940, helped her. He helped her with food and regularly gave her and her sister hope. Before he saw her for the last time, he advised her on a large selection that would ultimately serve to liquidate the camp. He told her to pretend she was a weaver and to tell the SS that her and her sister were trained. This advice was ultimately to save her life:'May his memory be blessed because he contributed to my survival'

'Half a year I was kept bent over... My hands were tied to my ankles. When they brought the food, the bowl was on the floor; they poured it from above and it was spilled all over. I had to lick it up with my tongue. We couldn't go out, so your pants were soiled.' Survivor Paul Gerhard Vogel

Punishment
Camp punishments for various misdemeanours included tree hanging, featuring a high pole erected with a hook from which a victim, already shackled from behind, was strung up by the hands. The weight of the body soon pulled the arms up resulting in excruciating pain as the shoulders twisted under the strain. These poles were arranged in multiple lines and referred to 'the singing forest'. Gay survivor Heinz Dörmer recalls 'The howling and the screaming was inhuman.'

Another popular punishment was the horse: a wooden bench over which a victim was secured stomach down, legs and arms tied to the legs, before being struck several times with a blunt instrument or whip. Other forms of punishment included standing still for hours on end either in the heat of the day of the cold of night and being made to crawl along a concrete floor again and again on bare elbows and knees. All of these punishments were carried out in front of other inmates adding to the humiliation.

'Two SS men brought a young man to the center of the square… …the SS stripped him naked and shoved a tin pale over his head. Next, they sicced their ferocious German shepherds on him: the guard dogs first bit into his groin and thighs, then devoured him right in front of us. His shrieks of pain were distorted and amplified by the pain in which his head was trapped. My rigid body reeled, my eyes gaped at so much horror, tears poured down my cheeks, I fervently prayed that he would black out quickly.' Pierre Seel, 'Liberation Was for Others'

Sometimes the SS would order all prisoners onto the main roll call square where they would be forced to watch executions. These public displays of horrific violence would act as harsh deterrents to any inmate thinking of stepping out of line and add to the climate of terror and solitude.

In some camps the pink triangles were integrated with other prison blocks but other camps, such as Sachsenhausen, special 175 blocks were erected to house homosexuals in segregation.In these blocks the pink triangles were made to sleep only in their nightshirts with hands outside the thin blankets and clearly visible. This was to prevent any physical contact with other inmates sharing the bunk. The overhead lights were also left on at all times making it harder to sleep for any period of time.

'Anyone found with his underclothes on in bed, or his hand under his blanket -- there were checks almost every night -- was taken outside and had several bowls of water poured over him before being left standing outside for a good hour. Only a few people survived this treatment.' . Heinz Heger

Relationships
In spite of the harsh conditions in the camps, or even because of it, relationships were formed. Survivors talk of beneficial sexual and emotional bonds that existed between inmates and camp commandants, block leaders and even in some cases, SS guards. Guards and capos- the block leaders often took a male prisoner that they liked and kept them as 'pets'. In the absence of women, who were forbidden entry to men's blocks, it appeared that sexual drives were often stronger than sexual boundaries. Those 'lucky' enough to be chosen as pets would receive extra food rations in return for sexual favours and often avoided the hard labour forced onto the other prisoners.

While the majority of these relationships were clearly driven by desperate times and survival tactics, others were driven by genuine affection in the face of unbelievable hardship.

Experiments
If harsh physical work and brutal punishments were not enough to fear, many homosexuals were also selected for the various medical experiments undertaken by SS doctors. At Auschwitz Birkenau for example, SS physician Dr. Carl Vaernet attempted to rid gay men of their homosexual tendencies by the surgical insertion of testosterone capsules.

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