Berlin - Tens of thousands of gays and lesbians defied rain to join the annual Christopher Street Day parade through the streets of Berlin Saturday.

The exotically clad procession, many waving rainbow flags, started for the first time in former East Berlin before making its way along the boulevard Unter den Linden to the Victory column in the west of the city.

Earlier political leaders along with gay and lesbian representatives paid tribute to the many victims of Nazi persecution of homosexuals between 1933 and 1945 at a memorial unveiled in May this year.

Among the participants was 95-year-old Rudolf Brazda, who survived incarceration in Buchenwald concentration from 1941 to 1945.

German actress Maren Kroymann placed a rose at the memorial to the tens of thousands of gays and lesbians who were persecuted and killed in Nazi Germany. (dpa)