What is “Paragraph 175” you ask? It’s the section of the German Penal Code that criminalized homosexuality and was used by the Nazis to justify their extermination of gay men and women as part of the Final Solution. Although the law was on the books prior to Hitler’s ascension to power, it was tacitly ignored and strongly opposed by prominent gay Berliners. Now that only a tiny handful of gay survivors of the death camps remain, the urgency of telling their stories becomes all the more essential. Paragraph 175 follows Klaus Müller, a determined historian, as he gathers material for the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and solicits the testimonies of the 10 known survivors. The film is expertly made by the Oscar-winning team of documentarians Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt, The Celluloid Closet), and narrated by Rupert Everett.
This article appears in April 20 • 2001.
