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Paragraph 175Rating:
Release Date: 23 July, 2002 Retail Price: $29.95 OUR Price: $26.99 You SAVE: $2.96! Cast: Complete Cast (5 total) |
Paragraph 175 Reviews
"The loss of civil rights may be imposed."
The film's title "Paragraph 175" refers to the passage in German law forbidding homosexuality. Paragraph 175 was first introduced into law in 1871, and as a result, homosexuals were subject to criminal prosecution and blackmail. Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a German Jewish doctor, and a pioneer in the study of Human Sexuality, formed the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee with the goal of repealing Paragraph 175. In Weimar Germany of the 1920s, an enhanced feeling of social and sexual freedom augured well for homosexuals, and Berlin became a "homosexual Eden." But once the Nazis took power, they enforced anti-gays laws with a vengeance. According to historian Klaus Muller, in Nazi Germany 100,000 men were arrested for homosexuality, and approximately 10,000-15,000 were sent to concentration camps. Of that number, less than 10 remained alive at the time the film was made. The film, gently and non-intrusively narrated by Rupert Everett, is built around interviews with a handful of homosexuals who survived the concentration camps.
Once the Nazis took power, they moved swiftly and systematically against the homosexual community. Survivors detail how they clung to vain hope--one man, for example believed that with known homosexual, Ernst Rohm controlling the Sturmabteilung (SA) other homosexuals would be safe. Another survivor noted the homosexual clubs remained open after the Nazis came to power, and he took this as a positive sign before he realized that "they let us keep our meeting places, so we could be snatched up."
The survivors tell their painful stories. One man looks through a photo album in which most of the photos have now been removed; another looks at a photo of a large family gathering and is able to pick out the faces of the two relatives who survived. One remembers the screams of those hung from poles. One man spent years in Buchenwald--only to be snatched up and thrown in Dachau. While most of the survivors are unable or unwilling to describe their experiences in the concentration camps, the grief, the anger, and the outrage are just below the surface.
"Paragraph 175" is an important, gripping, powerful film--those incarcerated, tortured and murdered for their sexual orientation should not be forgotten. The anti-homosexual movement began as a loss of Civil Rights and devolved into one of the most shameful episodes in history. To quote one of the survivors, "I am ashamed for humanity"--displacedhuman
From a Dark and Lonely Place In The Soul
The German Penal Code of 1871, Paragraph 175, states "An unnatural sex act committed between persons of the male sex or by humans with animals is punishable by imprisonment; the loss of civil rights may also be imposed." The law was widely disregarded, and the post-World War I Weimar Republic saw a flowering of gay and lesbian culture, most particularly in Berlin. When the Weimar Republic collapsed and the Nazi party rose to power, few gays and lesbians felt any reason to fear: was not Ernst Rohm, head of the SA, well known for his homosexuality?
On 1 July 1934, later known as "The Night of Long Knives," the Nazi party conducted a bloody purge of their ranks. Rohm was among the victims, and as the Nazis swept to full power over Germany they moved to broaden the scope of Paragraph 175. The glory days of gay and lesbian Berlin were over. Somewhat oddly, lesbians were not regarded as a threat to the Nazi party, and many lesbians either left Germany or simply withdrew from public life, thus escaping with their lives. Gay men, however, came under full attack. A special branch of the Gestapo was formed to identify gay men; once their lists were established the arrests began.
With many records destroyed by the Nazis as the Allies swept through Europe at the close of the war, it is now very difficult to estimate how many homosexuals were arrested. Most historians agree there is hard evidence to support a figure of 100,000, but many note that the total may have been well in excess of that, possibly to the extent of 600,000 total. Of those fed into the Nazi meat grinder, perhaps 4,000 survived--a much lower survival rate than that found even among political prisoners. There is considerable evidence that homosexuals were regarded as the "lowest of the low" in the prison pecking order and suffered not only from Nazi atrocity but were also sometimes savaged by their fellow prisoners as well. And to them was given a final curse: the victorious Allies retained Paragraph 175 as law following the collapse of Nazi Germany. Fearing possible re-arrest at Allied hands, homosexuals who survived the prisons and concentration camps dare not speak of their lives and experiences. Most would remain silent until their deaths.
The documentary PARAGRAPH 175 does not attempt to examine the full scope of Nazi atrocity or even Nazi atrocity against the gay community. It instead focuses on the memories of a handful of men and women who recall their experiences. Perhaps the single most famous of these is Pierre Seel, who saw his lover killed by dogs in the death camps and who closeted himself to a remarkable extent after the war. "I am ashamed!" Seel cries at one point in his series of interviews. "I am ashamed for humanity!" It is a memorable moment of pain echoing across the decades. Seel died in 2005.
While most of the interview subjects are male, lesbians are represented by Annette Eick, a remarkably charming woman, and while their stories vary considerably in detail they are the same in content: I was there, I saw it, and I bear witness for those who cannot speak. At times the film seems excessively languid, but overall it does justice to its interview subjects, who emerge as fully-depicted individuals, sometimes passionate, sometimes restrained, but never without the dignity that should belong to all mankind as birthright.
The DVD contains several extras. Although it contained several points of interest I was not greatly impressed with the audio commentary; on the other hand, I was greatly impressed with two bonus interviews and particularly so by subject Kitty Fisher, a Jewish woman who recounts how a homosexual prisoner came to her aid--and whose advice ultimately saved her life.
These are painful memories, all of them, and all the more so because the Holocaust has been increasingly downplayed over the past few decades--downplayed to a point at which some few now attempt to deny that it ever occurred at all. But facts remain facts no matter how many misguided people attempt to change or refute them, and in the name of humanity itself we owe all those who have suffered in the killing fields of the world the dignity of truth. PARAGRAPH 175 is a part of that truth.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
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