They were only numerals, three of them, but the very mention of 175 could instill fear in the hearts of gays living in Nazi Germany.

Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code was all the authorities needed to detain homosexuals, throw them in prison, send them to concentration camps, conduct medical experiments on them and even kill them.

A new exhibit that opens today at the Holocaust Museum Houston offers a glimpse into what life was like for gay men in Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.

The story of homosexuals in Nazi Germany is told through photos and through the words of survivors like Harry Pauly:

“When the Nazis came to power, they closed the gay bars,” he recalled. “Some homosexuals, especially those who were Jewish, were killed by Nazi hooligans; my friend ‘Susi,’ a drag queen, was stabbed to death.”

Collin Keel, director of changing exhibits at the museum, said Paragraph 175 was already in force when the Nazis, under Adolf Hitler, strengthened it in an effort to eradicate gays along with others considered to be counter to the goal of creating a master Aryan race.

The Nazis considered homosexuals to carry a “contagious degeneracy” that threatened the New World Order they were building.

“The Nazis rewrote 175 in 1935 when the persecution began,” he said.

Prior to that time, Keel said, homosexuals thrived in Germany’s larger cities, frequenting gay nightclubs and living more openly than they dared after the code’s revision.

The story of Richard Grune, whose artwork is a visual representation of the persecution of homosexuals, is also recounted in the exhibit. He was arrested in 1934 and imprisoned for being a homosexual.

After his release, he was arrested again and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Transferred to another camp in 1940, he managed to escape shortly before liberation.

One-third of gays arrested
Of the estimated 350,000 gay men and lesbians living in Germany during World War II, Keel said, about 100,000 were arrested for being homosexual.

Thousands died in captivity either through forced labor programs that were so intense and debilitating they led to death or though the Nazi’s systemic campaign to eliminate those considered undesirable.

Though most who died were gay men, Keel said, five women were known to have died in captivity because they were identified as lesbians. One of them was Henny Schermann.

Schermann, a 24-year-old Jewish shop girl living in Frankfurt, was arrested in 1940 and deported to the Ravensbrueck concentration camp for women.

Written on the back of her prisoner identification are these words: “Jenny (sic) Sara Schermann, born February 19, 1912, Frankfurt am Main. Unmarried shopgirl in Frankfurt am Main. Licentious lesbian, only visited such [lesbian] bars. Avoided the name ‘Sara.’ Stateless Jew.”

She was gassed at Bernberg in 1942.

For the most part, Keel said, the Nazis didn’t pay much attention to lesbians. In a state that glorified blue-eyed, blond-haired, muscled men, women didn’t matter.

When the concentration camps were liberated at the end of World War II, Keel said, there was no liberation for homosexuals. Paragraph 175 remained in force.

No liberation for homosexuals
“At the liberation in 1945, the homosexuals remained in prison to serve out their terms,” Keel said. “They weren’t given any reparations for what they had been through.”

It wasn’t until 1995, 40 years after the war’s end, that homosexuals murdered by the Nazis were recognized.

“On the 40th anniversary, a monument was set up in Germany for homosexual victims of the Holocaust,” Keel said. “In 2002, the German parliament pardoned all homosexuals.”

With a hint of sarcasm in his voice, Keel added, “It only took 60 years.”

The exhibit in Houston is on loan from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. “We’ve never done an exhibit about this topic,” Keel said.

Musuem organizers are encouraging Houston gays to see the exhibit for an alarming look at the terror homosexuals in Germany experienced at the hands of right-wing fanatics.

“Homosexuals have long been targets of systematic hatred and discrimination. These images and the stories they tell document a horrible time in the history of mankind and remind us that prejudice still exists in both subtle and overt ways even today,” said Coy Tow, executive director of the Greater Houston GLBT Chamber of Commerce.

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