Toronto Star
"Setterington’s slim book, which should be in schools, synagogues and human rights museums everywhere, speaks volumes about a time that few LGBT youths today, contemplating who to take to the prom or the parade, would have knowledge about."
CM Magazine
"Many do not know the history of the pink triangle, but this volume not only gives a full history of an incredibly important contemporary symbol of gay culture, it also manages to successfully navigate sensitive and difficult topics with great dexterity and sensitivity. Setterington has managed to bring visibility to a much needed area of history."
Kiss the Book blog - Cindy Mitchell
"...a rich addition to a library for older readers that covers the Holocaust."
Association of Jewish Libraries Reviews
"This book is highly recommended for all collections that have Holocaust materials."
The Windy City Times
"Author Ken Setterington sets the record straight—so to speak—about the origin of the pink triangle and why even those in the LGBT community have, at times, overzealously tried to conceal its past."
The Midwest Book Review
"Telling the stories of the men who faced this persecution, the long road back to acceptance, and the story of the pink triangle, Branded by the Pink Triangle is a strong addition to gay studies and history collections, as well as Holocaust studies collections."
Reading Today Online International Reading Association
"Some young readers familiar with the play and movie Bent may be familiar with this aspect of the Holocaust, but most will have no idea of this form of discrimination. Young readers will now know this important piece of Holocaust history and understand the significance of the pink triangle, now the symbol of gay rights, once a mark of shame."
Quill & Quire
"At a time when the “It Gets Better” campaign and anti-bullying measures are helping promote the safety and acceptance of LGBT youth, it is necessary to take a sobering look back at what the book’s cover copy describes as “a time when your sexuality could be your death sentence.” ... Offering a detailed timeline of crucial events during this period of history, and including the stories of several gay men who survived the Nazi regime, Setterington’s book is a much needed complement to existing studies of the Holocaust, and vital reading for young and adult readers alike."
Resource Links
"With accuracy and alacrity, Ken Setterington details the Nazi persecution of homosexuals...Beyond being useful for research purposes, it serves to begin those sensitive and controversial discussions that are our right and freedom to embrace in a democratic nation."
Reading Today Online
"This book does an excellent job of describing the initial harassment of gay men by the Nazis...Young readers will now know this important piece of Holocaust history and understand the significance of the pink triangle, now the symbol of gay rights, once a mark of shame."
Booklist
"Setterington’s is a significant contribution to LGBT history and one that deserves a wide readership."
Booklist
"Setterington’s is a significant contribution to LGBT history and one that deserves a wide readership."
School Library Journal
Gr 9 Up—Stories from the Holocaust are universally heartbreaking and horrifying, and this one is no different. The pink triangle was used by the Nazis to identify homosexual prisoners in the concentration camps, and here Setterington shows how it has been adopted by the gay movement as a symbol of strength and pride. He describes how German society's relatively tolerant attitudes of the 1920s grew less so as Hitler and the Nazis came into power and began a quest to purify the "Aryan race." By weaving the individual experiences into a broader account of the treatment and persecution of homosexuals by the Nazi regime, the author provides a compelling and evocative narrative. Culling first-person accounts from concentration camp survivors, he is able to paint a picture of the fear and harassment (and for some, ultimately death) that these individuals and their families endured. The writing is succinct but detailed enough to satisfy researchers. Period photographs, a lengthy time line, and an extensive bibliography round out the strengths of this thoughtful, informative work.—Jody Kopple, Shady Hill School, Cambridge, MA
Kirkus Reviews
An impassioned and cogent history of the persecution of gay men during the Holocaust. Setterington opens with the riveting anecdote of a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz who was rescued and nurtured by a man with a pink triangle on his uniform. From this beginning, he moves back in time to introduce readers to early-20th-century Berlin, a bastion of gay tolerance despite the anti-homosexual law known as Paragraph 175. He goes on to chronicle the Nazis' crackdown on gay men, their deportation to concentration camps, the experiences of both Jewish and Gentile gay men, and the aftermath of the war. Most cruelly, gay survivors were treated as criminals rather than victims, since their liberators viewed homosexuality as a crime. Illuminating the historical overview are stories of specific young (mostly teenage) gay men, taken mostly from memoirs. They are related with immediacy, personalizing the potentially mind-numbing catalog of horrors that make up any Holocaust account. Details, too, take readers into the heart of the insanity: Paragraph 175 was enforced in Western European "Aryan" territories such as the Netherlands but not in Poland and Eastern Europe, where they were seen as part of the strategy to undermine the already-"degraded" Slavic peoples. Never downplaying the appalling cataclysm that was the murder of 6 million Jews, Setterington nevertheless effectively makes the case for history's need to remember Hitler's other victims as well. Despite its brevity, a remarkably informative and necessary work. (notes, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 12 & up)