LGBT synagogue helps bring exhibit on Nazi persecution of gays to Dallas Holocaust Museum

“Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals, 1933 – 1945,” a traveling exhibit from the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., will be at the Dallas Holocaust Museum June 3-Sept. 5, museum president and CEO Alice Murray announced today.
Congregation Beth El Binah, an LGBT Reform Jewish congregation, is working with the museum to secure funding to bring the exhibit to Dallas and develop programming around the exhibition.
Museum spokeswoman Nanette Fodell said, “We’re thrilled and looking forward to welcoming the LGBT community to the museum.”
When Hitler came to power in 1933, he banned all gay and lesbian organizations and the 1871 law known as Paragraph 175 was enforced:

A male who commits lewd and lascivious acts with another male or permits himself to be so abused for lewd and lascivious acts, shall be punished by imprisonment. In a case of a participant under 21 years of age at the time of the commission of the act, the court may, in especially slight cases, refrain from punishment.

In 1935, it was amended to include this “Confinement in a penitentiary not to exceed ten years.”
After World War II, gays who survived concentration camps were imprisoned to finish their sentences. Time served in a concentration camp did not count toward their sentences.
Paragraph 175 was repealed in 1993.
The partnership between Beth El Binah and the museum began last summer when Westboro Baptist Church picketed both the synagogue and the museum. That day, a fundraising record was hit for a Phelps protest when $11,000 was raised for Resource Center Dallas.
Congregation President Diane Litke said, “Our friendship with the museum and bringing this exhibit to Dallas is just more good that came from Fred Phelps visit.”
The Dallas Holocaust Museum Center for Education and Tolerance, 211 N. Record St. is located in Downtown Dallas at West End Station. Mon.–Fri. 9:30 a.m.–5 p.m., Sat.–Sun. 11 a.m.–5 p.m.