The Handwerker Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933-1945, a traveling exhibition organized by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, on Thursday, January 26.
Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany sought domination over Europe and, in what is now called the Holocaust, the total annihilation of Europe’s Jews. As part of its effort to create a “master Aryan race,” the Nazi government persecuted other groups, including Germany’s homosexual men. Believing them to be carriers of a “degeneracy” that threatened the nation’s “disciplined masculinity” and hindered population growth, the Nazi state incarcerated in prisons and concentration camps tens of thousands of men as a means of terrorizing German homosexuals into social conformity. Through reproductions of some 250 historic photographs and documents, this exhibition examines the rationale, means, and impact of the Nazi regime’s attempt to eradicate homosexuality that left thousands dead and shattered the lives of many more.
The public is invited to attend the opening reception from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 26. The exhibition runs through February 26 and is free and open to the public. A curator's talk, film series and roundtable discussion will accompany this exhibition. See https://www.ithaca.edu/hs/handwerker/g/upcoming_events/ for details.
This event is co-sponsored by the Handwerker Gallery, Hillel and the LGBT Center. For further information please contact Handwerker Gallery Director Cheryl Kramer at 274-3548.
Image: Richard Grune, Solidarity, 1947. Courtesy Schwules Museum, Berlin
