Grand Freedom

Paragraph 175 & How It Affected A Gay Man's Life

Told in the first person and with an intensity as if the events are happening at the moment, Sacramento-based author RODION REBENYAR has created a story built around a tragedy which, by rights, should never have happened. The subject of the book was prompted by the ignorance, not only in the LGBTQ community but the public at large, of widespread injustice which occurred at the end of World War II and the revelations about the extent of Europe's ghastly Holocaust.Many German citizens were tried and sentenced to terms in prison or concentration camps due to the strengthening of Paragraph 175 of that country's penal code. The law, formulated originally at the time of German reunification under Bismarck in 1871, was broadened in Nazi times (1933-1945) to include illicit encounters between persons of the same sex, no matter how subtle and regardless of intent.While many persecuted people were liberated and repatriated by Allied occupation forces at war's end, gay men and women who were sentenced under Paragraph 175 saw their sentences incredulously upheld by the courts and liberators. Many of them, including our narrator, were put back into captivity as a result of this shortsighted policy and forced to serve out their original sentences.Predictably, public opinion was set against the gay and lesbian community for decades and Paragraph 175 remained officially on the books long after hostilities ended. This is a story of betrayal, one that needs to be brought to light so that it will never happen again.