Today on International Holocaust Remembrance Day we launch the public presentation of LIEBEration 175. In an instance of rare tragic irony, just two days earlier the government of Russian Federation passed a federal ban on “propaganda of homosexuality” opening another chapter of injustice and abuse of minorities.  Each day the next of 175 images will be unveiled here. For more about the project, read here.

LIEBEration 175 # 1 Recite Poetry … with Eugene

The poem chosen for recital at the entrance to Sachsenhausen Memorial to commemorate the commencement of LIEBEration was Walt Whitman’s #41 from Calamus Poems / Leaves of Grass, 1860:

Among the men and women, the multitude, I perceive
one, picking me out by secret and divine
signs,

Acknowledging none else – not parent, wife, husband,
brother, child, any nearer than I am;
Some are baffled – But that one is not – that one
knows me.

Lover and perfect equal!
I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint
indirections,
And I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the
like in you.