Hamburg’s sex workers persecuted under Hitler to be commemorated

Planned memorial aims at ‘dignified remembrance’ of women of St Pauli detained as perverts under the Nazis

Sex workers in Hamburg’s historic red-light district who were persecuted under Adolf Hitler are to get their own memorial at Herbertstraße, a notorious street in Germany’s second city still blocked off to all but prostitutes and their clients.

Few people, even residents, know that it was the Nazis who built the world-famous gates around the row of “houses of pleasure” in an attempt to shame sex workers while discreetly keeping business going.