Did tons of yard work today. It has been so stinking hot that we have totally ignored the yard. NO mowing, no weeding, no nothing since July 2nd. It was worse than we thought. Thank goodness that it cooled off enough this weekend to get something done. We got most of it but next weekend I have a bit more to do in the backyard. I want it to look nice for the following weekend. One of our friends are moving back to Germany and we are throwing a farewell pool party for them.

I watched an amazing documentary yesterday. It is called Paragraph 175.

This is quoted from the website.

By the 1920’s, Berlin had become known as a homosexual eden, where gay men and lesbians lived relatively open lives amidst an exciting subculture of artists and intellectuals. With the coming to power of the Nazis, all this changed. Between 1933 and 1945 100,000 men were arrested for homosexuality under Paragraph 175, the sodomy provision of the German penal code dating back to 1871. Some were imprisoned, others were sent to concentration camps. Of the latter, only about 4,000 survived. Today, fewer than ten of these men are known to be living. Five of them have now come forward to tell their stories for the first time in this powerful new film.

The Nazi persecution of homosexuals may be the last untold story of the Third Reich. Paragraph 175 fills a crucial gap in the historical record, and reveals the lasting consequences of this hidden chapter of 20th century history, as told through personal stories of men and women who lived through it: the half Jewish gay resistance fighter who spent the war helping refugees in Berlin; the Jewish lesbian who escaped to England with the help of a woman she had a crush on; the German Christian photographer who was arrested and imprisoned for homosexuality, then joined the army on his release because he “wanted to be with men”; the French Alsatian teenager who watched as his lover was tortured and murdered in the camps. These are stories of survivors -- sometimes bitter, but just as often filled with irony and humor; tortured by their memories, yet infused with a powerful will to endure. Their moving testimonies, rendered with evocative images of their lives and times, tell a haunting, compelling story of human resilience in the face of unspeakable cruelty. Intimate in its portrayals, sweeping in its implications, Paragraph 175 raises provocative questions about memory, history, and identity.


It was sad and made me cry several times. It also frightened me. It is the same kind of hate you see today. That any human would do these kinds of things to another human shows a hate that is so deep. I see this kind of hate today in much of what I read and hear others say. I find it hard to wrap my brain around it. The concept of hate so deep that it can drive a person or group of people to behave in such a horrid way. That it is a part of history not taught or spoken of, and barely documented shows that the prejudice that was bred in Nazi Germany towards gay people exists today.

People like to blame Hitler. I do not understand how they came blame one man. He may have led the parade, but everyone else had to follow. That little man had to convince 1000's (maybe millions?) that his way of thinking was right. He had to convince them all that it was OK to kill somply because of religion, sexual preference, political beliefs, and whatever else his sick little mind came up with. Hitler should be blamed, but I believe ALL who followed should also shoulder that blame. It makes me think of the quote, (which I am not getting totally right here) "For evil to succeed, all good people need to do is nothing".

Enough of my weird little thoughts.