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Film Screening – Paragraph 175

January 22, 2017 @ 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm


The screening of the film, Paragraph 175, will be followed by a panel discussion. Ken Setterington, award-winning author of Branded by the Pink Triangle, will be the keynote speaker. He will be joined by playwright Garry Williams, artist & chronicler Robin Metcalfe, and Holocaust scholar Doroto Glowacka, in a panel moderated by lawyer and activist Kevin Kindred.

Paragraph 175 (known formally as §175 StGB; also known as Section 175 in English) was a provision of the German Criminal Code from 15 May 1871 to 10 March 1994 which made homosexual acts between males a crime.  Early versions also criminalized bestiality as well as forms of prostitution and underage sexual abuse.  The Nazis broadened the law in 1935; and in prosecutions that followed, thousands died in concentration camps as a widespread social persecution of homosexuals took place.  Between 1933 and 1945, 100,000 men were arrested under Paragraph 175. Some were imprisoned, others were sent to concentration camps. Only about 4,000 survived.

Paragraph 175 is also a documentary film, directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, and narrated by British actor Rupert Everett. It chronicles the lives of several gay men and one lesbian who were persecuted by the Nazis.

In 2000, fewer than ten of the survivors were known to be still living. The five who tell their stories for the first time help to fill a gap in the historical record and reveal the lasting consequences borne by gay men and women who lived through it, including: Karl Gorath; Gad Beck (the half-Jewish resistance fighter who spent the war helping refugees escape Berlin); Annette Eick, a Jewish lesbian who escaped to England with the help of a woman she loved; Albrecht Becker, German Christian photographer, who was arrested and imprisoned for homosexuality, then joined the army on his release because he “wanted to be with men”; Pierre Seel, the French Alsatian teenager, who watched as his lover was eaten alive by dogs in the camps.

This is where the stories of Jews and the LGBTQ population intersect – we share a painful, tragic history about which many people still know very little.  It seems especially fitting that we mark International Holocaust Memorial Day (which falls on 27 January 2017) by acknowledging this shared history. 

American anthropologist Margaret Mead famously said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”  Join us as our two communities become catalysts for change.

We are particularly grateful for the support and generosity of Greg Hirsch and Jim Spatz who make this event possible.

Details

Date:
January 22, 2017
Time:
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Event Category:

Venue

Scotiabank Auditorium, Marion McCain Social Science Building
6135 University Avenue
Halifax, NS Canada
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