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PARAGRAPH 175
Directed by: Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman.
Produced by: Janet Cole, Michael Ehrenzweig, Epstein & Friedman.
Written by: Sharon Wood.
Director of Photography: Bernd Meiners.
Edited by: Dawn Logsdon.
Music by: Tibor Szemzö.
Released by: New Yorker.
Country of Origin: UK/Germany/USA. 76 min. Not Rated.
With: Narration by Rupert Everett.
DVD Features: Additional Footage. Director & Producer Commentary. Scene Selection. Trailer. Web Sites.

During the Third Reich, an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 men were persecuted under Paragraph 175, the German law penalizing male sodomy (lesbianism was not seen as a threat to the Fatherland). It is estimated that two-thirds perished in concentration camps. Paragraph 175 covers much of the same ground as the documentary Desire (1989)–life during the Weinmar Republic, the rise of Nazism, and the persecution of gays in the Third Reich. What sets this documentary apart are the interviews of six men and one woman who came of age shortly before and during Hitler's regime. Now in their 80s and 90s, these men, plus two others who declined to be filmed, are the only known gay survivors of Nazi persecution. Saving the most probing footage for the film's last quarter, their touching and often angry accounts paint a harrowing picture. Fascinatingly, one was a member of Hitler's Youth, while another fought in the German army. These often painfully personal revelations make this compelling film memorable, and sequences of evocative, sometimes sensuous and often arresting images enhance the mood.

The DVD special features add little historical information, except for two interviews from the Shoah Visual Foundation of Jewish concentrations camp survivors. One relates how a gay man was singled out for death, and the other gives credit to a man wearing a pink triangle badge for saving her life. Commentary by the directors and producer Ehrenzweig largely deals with production minutiae and behind-the-scenes negotiations for the interviews. Incredibly, the producers had to pay the German government for the rights to use Nazi propaganda footage. Kent Turner
July 6, 2003

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