Has anyone seen the documentary "Paragraph 175"?

[im10ashus]

I just watched it last night and it was amazing. The title comes from the German Penal Code which reads:

An unnatural sex act committted between persons of male sex or by humans with animals is punishable by imprisonment; the loss of civil rights may also be imposed.


- German Penal Code, 1871

Amazing documentary, if you haven't seen it.

[meegbear]

1. What is it about?

[im10ashus]

2. The persecution of gays and lesbians during WWII.

Here's a link to the website:

http://www.tellingpictures.com/films/5.html

:hi:

[davidinalameda]

3. I saw it in the theatre

gays were the only political prisoners that weren't released by the Allies

[kweerwolf]

4. It is a very powerful documentary

As a companion piece for it, I'd recommend the documentary "Desire" which is about the emergence of a gay community and gay issues in Germany prior to the Nazi era. It presents a fascinating look at a movement beginning to define itself and becomes sort of a "prequel" to "Paragraph 175."

[im10ashus]

5. Thank you!!!

I hadn't heard of that one before. :hi:

[Ayesha]

6. I watched it last night

after having seen V for Vendetta the night before. The combination really brought home how real and horrible it all was, and how close we are to it happening again.

[sui generis]

7. my german uncle was 14 years old during WWII

and had confessed to one of his teachers that he thought he liked boys more than girls. The teacher kept a record of students issues with the school and those records were searched at some point.

They took him to Dachau and killed him. A 14 year old boy - murdered under paragraph 175, not by Nazis but by the exact same bigotry that is sweeping the world right now.

When blacks were being lynched up through the fifies, it was only happening in America, and mostly in the south. We are being hunted the world over in every third world culture, and perversely, in America, the land of the free.

Paragraph 175 is not just a thing of the past.

[MountainLaurel]

8. What a horrible history.

And I agree that such hatred is not just a thing of the past.

[im10ashus]

10. That's so frightening to consider.

I am so sorry about your uncle. What a horrible, horrible world we live in. :hug:

[Meldread]

9. I've seen it.

It is so horrible, actually, it's why I have the pink triangle as my side avatar - taking that symbol and marking myself with it. I'd rather wear the pink triangle out of pride than out of fear.

Pierre Seel was the last known surviving French gay man who was a victim sent to the Nazi concentration camps, he died not to long ago - November 26, 2005 at the age of 82. He wrote a book about his experience, which was translated into English (here is an excerpt):

"All the inmates were summoned to stand at attention in the camp's assembly ground. The camp commandant and all his troops were there. Into the center of the square we were ordered to form, two SS men dragged a young man. With stupefaction I recognized my beloved, Jo -- he and I hadn't seen each other since a few days before my arrest....The loudspeakers played noisy military music as the SS men stripped him naked, and violently jammed a metal bucket over his head. They unleashed on Jo the camp's ferocious guard-dogs, German Shepherds, who began to rip at his flesh -- first his genitals, and his thighs, and then they devoured Jo before our eyes. His screams of pain were amplified and distorted by the bucket over his head. Frozen in place and trembling, wide-eyed at seeing so much horror, I had tears running down my cheeks. I prayed that he would rapidly lose consciousness...."

The book is called: "I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi Terror" (English version). You MIGHT be able to find a copy at Amazon.com (I see one is selling for $99. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465045006/103-1339909-9972635 )

If I had the ability, I'd make this required reading for any High School Students studying WWII. (Hell, I'd make it required reading for all of America.) At the very least it should be required reading for all LGBT Youth, it is sad - but I think if we aren't careful we'll lose our history. Unlike Black people we can't really "pass it down" through the generations as we would in a family. Each new generation seems to be oblivious to the last, and end up making similar mistakes as a result.

[im10ashus]

11. Thank you, Meldread.

I will put that book in my queue. :hi:

[readmoreoften]

15. whoa.

i am so committed to passing our history down. our histories get thrown away by the embarrased aunts and nephews who clean our attics when we die. i, today, am personally impoverished because the lives of so many of the lesbians who came before me have been erased.

[swimmernsecretsea]

12. I recall seeing that one at the Castro Theater

From IMDB.com:
• The statute of Paragraph 175 was amended several times. The Nazis broadened the law in 1935 and increased its prosecutions by an order of magnitude; thousands died in concentration camps, regardless of guilt or innocence. East Germany reverted to the old version of the law in 1950, limited its scope to sex with youths under 18 in 1968, and abolished it entirely in 1988. West Germany retained the Nazi-era statute until 1969, when it was limited to "qualified cases"; it was further attenuated in 1973 and finally revoked entirely in 1994 after German reunification.

This, along with the story line of "Bent", "The Celluloid Closet" (based on the book by Vitto Russo) and "Coming Out Under Fire" (based on the book by Abraham Benrube) collectively illustrate what sometimes is missed in descriptions of the holocaust; the freedoms enjoyed by people of that era in Berlin and Germany were many. Berlin was considered one of the most liberal cities in Europe. When acts of violence and persecution began, it was difficult to believe that such a thing could eventually lead to incarceration and the deaths of millions. It still seems unbelievable enough that people attempt to deny the existence of it, and are able to persuade others because of it.

Another person mentioned "V for Vendetta," in which there is a story within the story that mirrors the experience of the LGBT lives of that time. Could it happen again, and in the US? It's something I worry about frequently. That may seem unnecessarily cautious of me, but when I think about how, as another mentioned, that after the allied liberation of the camps that those marked by the pink triangle weren't released along with everyone else, I know that what rights I have are to be cherished and guarded.

[joeybee12]

13. Thanks for the recommendation...I just took it out of the library....

...very sad and moving. Amazing how liberal Berlin was after WWI, and how even still this could have happened.

[Chovexani]

14. I saw it on the Logo channel

It's incredibly sad and moving. And scary considering the current climate.

[readmoreoften]

16. Paragraph 175 is one of the most unbelievable things I'd ever seen.

To see these men who never talked about their experiences in the camps discuss it for the first time at the age of 80 or 90, to have to survive the camps and NEVER DISCUSS IT once you leave, to have NO COMMUNITY after survival... it is almost unbearable to watch. The man who was wildly screaming in French (because he refuses to speak German) "my ass still bleeds today!"

It is just too much, too raw.