Theater retraces life's steps, basically.
Sometimes the difficulties
Demand different choices and paths.
Differences arise.
Those differences so called social ones...
someone calls them problems.
We do not know what will be,
but we can talk about freedom.
Shout freedom.
That freedom that is inside everyone of us,
when we're ourselves,
without recognizing us in a color.
Despite indifierences,
everyone of us needs to be listened to.
Please, Marco, take me home.
I want to forget what I've seen this night.
Federica, I've seen worst thing.
Do you think the audience cheered to the story or to the guest star?
It's a good fight.
It's incredible how society leads a person to fade away.
A drink? I've a project and I wanted you to know it.
Everyone knows. Our company is going to hell.
Everybody is demotivated.
Luca today is in Rome to test screen in a reality show.
What? He's at the fruit course.
Federica, maybe you can't understand me.
We all are at the fruit course.
We're trying not to die.
I need to scene a modern project, to beat competition.
And I want you to write it.
Look around.
Big networks invaded the market in every field.
And our company has no more straws to clutch at.
Just like me.
Did you have something special in mind?
Homosexuality, Federica, homosexuality.
- What are you saying? - Think about it.
You need a testosterone phleboclysis, trust me.
Think about it. You could write a great story.
A true story.
You can make a real, alive man come true.
I'll tell you more.
If you need a name on the playbill, I'll find it.
Write something true, strong. About homosexuality.
- Marco, do you know who I am? - I know it well.
And you're asking me, me, to write a story about homosexuality?
Sure!
Shame on you! You're a bastard!
- Wait, Federica. - Taxi!
I'll take you...
I've had enough bullshits! I'm through with you.
Is it vacant?
- Please let's go - Don't joke, I'll take you...
She's still suffering.
Mammy? Mammy, it's you?
Yes baby, I didn't want to wake you up.
- Hi, mammy.
Hi, love, you're so heavy... Come on.
I'm wondering how daddy is.
Who knows.
Let's go to sleep now, I'll tuck your blankets in.
Come on.
I can't understand anymore. I've no more parameters.
Did you just have to leave me for a man?
And now Marco's asking me to write a story about homosexuality.
Sure, I could tell the end of our relationship.
It was like a movie.
But who could care?
Despite indifference, everyone of us needs...
...to be listened to.
Maybe I should have listen to you.
Yeah I should have listen to mother.
Homosexuality... go.
54340 sites.
All bullshits, banana split...go to hell
Holocaust...holocaust?
Adolf Hitler tried to hide his homosexuality...
- Good morning Federica. - Good morning to you.
- Is Marco here? - He'll be here in an hour.
You don't seem to be in a courtesy call.
- Is something brewing? - Yes, it's brewing.
A coffee?
- Good morning, Anna. - Good morning, girls.
Answer to this question. What color is shame?
I don't know what a question. maybe red, I don't know.
- And ignorance? - Ignorance...
- Brown, gray, dark, I don't know. - Listen.
Until yesterday I'd answer a random color like you did.
Today I know the color, it's pink.
- Two coffees, Luca. - On the way.
Federica, are you all right? For I cannot follow what you are saying.
No. Marco wants to save his theater.
He wants to put himself in line with big companies.
He wants to do it through modern and true themes.
And 'what's the problem?
Marco asked me to write a story about homosexuals.
He asked YOU?!
And he thinks I'm the right person for such a project.
- I think it too, by the way. - Do you?
What did you say about the color pink?
- Hi, boss. - Hi.
Good morning.
Federica, by seeing you here I can tell you slept on it.
- You wanted an involving project, - Yes.
- Strong but true, talking about homosexuals, right? - Right.
This is what you asked and this is what you'll have.
Why did you change your mind?
Yesterday night I discovered a world.
A tormented world, that I completely removed from my life for family reasons.
But now I feel the need to talk about it.
- About what? - About homosexuality.
Great! So we can start working!
I'll tell you my idea. Don't be afraid.
I was thinking to act a sit-com in theater.
Everything takes place in a sauna, and at a certain point.
Marco at a certain point? Full stop!
Listen, this project has a condition.
You don't... I don't want to talk about queens.
I want to talk about homosexuality,
not as a problem, but as a matter of fact.
- Last night I was so angry for your request. - I saw it.
Then suddenly came to my mind
the only reasonable cue in the show we saw last night.
And what it was?
"Everyone of us needs to be listened to."
I started to surf Internet to look for an inspiration
and I bumped to homosexuality as martyrdom.
I realized how huge was Homosexual persecution during nazism and fascism.
I know they were deported in concentration camps, weren't they?
This argument was a taboo for decades after the holocaust.
Everything was documented. Meanwhile. look!
They put a triangle on deported people clothes.
For example Yellow for Hebrew.
Two overlapping triangles for the star of David.
Red: political dissidents, communists.
Green: criminals. Purple: Jehovah's witnesses.
Blue: immigrated people. Brown: roms.
Black: antisocial people, prostitutes, lesbians.
- And finally pink: gay men.
- And this will be our story. - Yes
It'll be called The color of silence.
It'll be a lectures and interpretations performance from some real documents.
And you know what? We'll perform may 7th,
the sixtieth anniversary of Germany surrender.
The argument is strong. What are your moves?
It's a strong argument, but delicate too.
Before we start lid like to talk to the cast.
Let's call just Manuel.
- I'd like non professional actors. - But...
Mr. Marco, do we change the bulbs?
Now I'm here, then live to dump the rubbish.
I'm looking for actors, are you interested?
Ne“. De NW.!
But...What?! Federica!
Let's talk about it later with Mirka.
- We'll think about it later, Gino, thank you. - Okay...
Listen Federica, Gino is a good man, but...
Give me cane blanche and I'll make him a jewel.
I only have to give him silent lectures. It's not diff cult.
Bye my dear.
Oh my God...
Here we are Marco.
- Well. Are we all here? - Yes.
- Good morning. - Good morning, Manuel.
Hey guys, may I have a coffee?
I have an hole in the breastbone, I need the coffee or I'll puke.
It's disgusting! If you have to puke do it outside,
so it's up to you to clean.
A hole in the stomach, not in the breastbone.
This is the breastbone.
What about him?
Come on, handsome, sit here with us and listen.
You're an actor here
and you have to keep concentrated. Okay?
Silence is golden.
But from now on, it's pink for us.
- You tattler! - Come on,
we'll perform in 18 days.
This project travels over what happened again to homosexuals
during world war ll.
We will not act in the usual way. Everyone of you will act different roles.
We'll sing, we'll talk, we'll march.
We'll represent the prisoner souls among burned men's ashes,
as they could come back to life for a night to witness their truth.
Will we talk about death people? It'll be terrible.
It'll be gruesome.
But this is the truth and it was gruesome.
As the Hebrews, homosexuals were arrested, and deported in concentrating camps
where obviously they suffered many vexations.
And often they were subject to scientific experiments.
The were also marked with a symbol.
At the beginning it was a yellow bracelet marked with an A
A for ARSCHFICKER, that in German language means sodomite.
Later was added the number 175
and finally the had to wear the pink triangle, sewed on the breast.
The total number of persecuted homosexual ls officially estimated in about 100.000.
But this is insane!
But why 175 and not 313, for instance?
Paragraph 175 was a 1871 law of German civil code.
And what does it say?
An unnatural sex act committed between persons of male sex or by humans
with animals is punishable by imprisonment;
the loss of civil rights might also be imposed.
In 1935, Hitler modified this paragraph by including
kissing, embracing and having homosexual fantasies as sexual acts.
The punishment for such crimes was extended
first to sterilization by castration
then to death sentence.
I saw a movie. It picks up witnessing of the last survivors.
One of them really struck me.
This man suffered such tortures,
and he still felt the consequences after 60 years
Notwithstanding, after the end of the x-var, because of article 175,
he does not receive any disability pension.
It's astonishing.
But Federica, Homosexual is a word used for women, too.
Were they treated the same way?
They've been persecuted too,
but not so hardly because they did not represent
a social-sexual menace to Third Reich foundations.
You know, during a regime women are useful,
they can give birth to children.
Anyway, lesbians were considered as perverted as prostitutes,
and deported in concentrating camps.
In Berlin there were many bar after world war I
gay and lesbian often used to go in there.
One of them was the Dorian Grey.
Deported.
How could I even think about that?
Until yesterday we seemed to be...
Free.
Today we have to hide from freedom.
It's no use...
Cry.
We only play along with them.
But inside, inside.
There's a soul.
A soul...
Strong.
You are a woman.
You're nothing for the world.
Just a mouth to feed.
For the army.
They called us...
"Productives"
Not mothers.
Productives to churn out slaves,
repressed.
Suffocated by a judge winning in death,
but unable...
To respect life.
Deported.
In my WY-
With the rise of nazism these limited spaces of freedom disappeared.
A threat atmosphere encouraged police's actions
and invited conventional thinkers to informing.
So it wasn't unusual to have Gestapo at your door.
Many of them moved house,
other lesbian got married with gay man just not to be noticed.
For Hebrews, to be also homosexual was just an aggravating.
Just like Henny Schermann, for example.
In 1938 Hebrew women
had to put the second name Sarah on their documents,
to distinguish their Hebrew origin.
Henny Shermann, age 24, born in Frankfurt, single,
shop assistants and gay bar customer,
did not comply to this duty.
In 1940 she was arrested and deported in concentration camp.
She died two years later in the gas chambers.
Mother mine,
you only know who I am,
you only can understand,
you only see that far.
I'm dying alone,
because you created me.
I've no way out,
I suffocate for motivation,
nonsense and truthless motivations.
I'm a woman,
women's lover.
My inside desire...
is woman.
My outside spirit is woman.
Woman...
woman...
Woman just like you, mother.
If destiny had predict this moment of mine,
I will respect it,
but as a woman,
who wants a woman.
I'll die.
Mother...
It' s up to me.
And what about Italy?
In Italy there was the Rocco Code,
that contained no specific laws against homosexuals;
this because the fascist regime sustained
the absolute virility of the Italian male,
and because police and church guaranteed
an adequate repression of this phenomenon.
And without evidences or trials about
they can exile someone.
It happened to an hundred of Italian homosexuals
Just to have an idea of the fascism's ideas about the argument,
this is one of fascism favourite mottos:
"For the welfare of our race, pederasts to internment."
This doesn't even rhyme.
I do not understand all the things you're saying
- It's better to take a break, isn't it?
Right. We'll be back in fifteen minutes.
But why the 8.8. did not shoot them, instead of torturing them?
And what about the taste of it?
- Ow, sure. - Anyway they did that too.
They were used as targets during shooting trainings.
They really did it too?
Yes. Someone avoided that treatment in the oldest way:
they agreed to the sexual proposals of some 8.8..
- Ah, they became lovers? - Not at all.
Nazis used to despise the ones who agreed their proposals.
After their dirty tricks, naked prisoners were thrown outside,
to pick up ground, snow or even shit with their bare hands.
There were not any consideration for them.
- But wasn't the true denounced? - To whom?
They killed one other, too.
Listen to this.
Ernst Roehm, who was a concerned homosexual,
became the absolute leader of the assault troops,
the notorious SA,
and they smoothed the my to the rising Nazis party
leaded by Hitler.
For various discordances
and to eliminate uncomfortable witnesses of his past as an homosexual,
Hitler had Rohem killed with his army,
during the night of June 30, 1934,
also known as "The night of long knives".
There no need to say that they did everything,
during that regime, to clean theirselves out.
But this is normal.
So, Hitler was an homosexual?
So it seemed.
Look, the witness is called WALDBAUER, and during an October night, in 1914
Young Hitler spent the night by the guy's family.
The guy was sixteen, and with an expedient, young Hitler snaked in his bed.
Waldbauer, who claims to be heterosexual,
says he did not have any pleasure in masturbation
with the one who lately became the executioner of 80000 homosexuals.
These thing aren't Mitten In history books.
Curious, isn't it?
They talk about first row characters like
Heydrich, Himmler, Goering, Goebbels.
People can tell about the atrocity they did,
but they do not say they were homosexuals.
- Why? - Why...
And since the disgraces always come at night,
here we are to the night between November 9 and 10, 1938,
Also known as "The Night of Crystals"
The Nazis nightmare became a true season of horrors.
I love you and I swear you'll always be at my side.
- You deported them! - I can't help that, the ambassador decided it.
I swear I'll kill him. I'll do it.
- Don't think about it now. - Do you really love me?
I only live for you. Hide, someone's coming!
- Let's cheer! - Aye, Sir!
You dirty Nazi, you deported my parents!
Die, you bastard dog!
Now do whatever you want to me.
The assassination of a German diplomat was the pretext
that entitled violence during that night.
65 years after, from Berlin state's archives
emerged an unexpected implication of this fact:
the target of the young Hebrew wasn't the German diplomat,
but his gay secretary, his long time lover.
Andre' Gide', the writer, told about this fact in 1938.
- You mean, right when it happened. - Correct.
- Sorry! - Thanks.
- I clean up at once. - Don't worry, Gino.
I'll do it, don't worry
Are you all right?
Let's continue with it.
- Come on, Gino, it's all right. - Nothing happened.
Come on, guys, let's sit again.
Federica, tell us about the cultural implications of it.
Very bad, as everything.
This is and exemplary case.
Here it is...
Professor Hirschfeld, a pioneer in sexology,
who in 1897 founded an association for the rights of homosexual people,
the Scientific Humanitarian Committee.
My name is Magnus Hirschfeld.
My objective was to repeal the notorious Paragraph 175,
lasting for more than 40 years.
In 1913 I was one of the founders
of the "Medical Society for Sexology and Eugenetycs"
and in 1919 I opened the first institute of sexology
that, in Germany between the two world wars,
represented the scientific and cultural referring point
for the Berlin homosexual community,
gathering lots of scientist and intellectuals.
In 1928 I attended the creation of a World League for Sexual Reform.
Times and again the regime attempted to my life,
but it was during my absence,
While I was on a world speaking tour,
those Nazis "students" raided the institute
and took all the books from the library,
and they were publicly burned on may the 6th, 1933.
My house was confiscated
and the regime established there its departments.
I was persecuted as an homosexual and as a Hebrew,
I never went back to Germany.
His eyes didn't see the horror of Nazism and of the war.
He died in France in 1935.
Everything was lost?
His propaganda minister, while German culture was burning
and its authors were tortured, declared:
The soul of the German people can again express itself
these flames not only illuminate the final end of an old era,
they also announce the new one.
Henceforth he nazified German culture,
forcing all of the arts to serve the new regime.
Many artists and intellectuals fled Germany or were silenced.
Let's hope it don't happen to we too.
Don't worry Gino.
You do not run any danger, from this point of view.
But it's true that every art is full up with homosexual genii.
Maybe because they come out,
instead of those ones who don't admit it even to themselves.
These stories give me creeps.
But I'm so full of pride that I'm looking forward to begin.
Come on, let's go on. The horrors gallery it's not over.
The homosexuality was then considered
as a degenerative disease of the Arian Race.
Homosexuals were considered such as disabled people or terminally ill,
disfigured or alienated people.
For them was created the T4 project, best known as Euthanasia project,
that leaded to death thousands German citizens.
The pretext was to exterminate the so called useless mouths,
who burdened the economy of the country.
There was siblings among doctors,
who were persuaded that an homosexual could be cured
with sane testicles transplant or testosterone implants.
This it's madness! And It worked?
Listen to this. I say it from memory.
Heinrich Himmler, 8.8. chief since 1929,
allowed the Danish doctor Karl Peter Vaernet, specialized in endocrinology,
to carry out his studies on human guinea pigs, in Buchenwald concentration camp.
This eminent scientist was previously practicing on chickens.
Many deported prisoners died during operations.
Others died after few weeks after the operation.
Nevertheless, Vaernet went on with his experiments on homosexuals.
Life in concentration camps was dreadful for deported people.
And no way out.
Your only way out was death.
You died by starvation,
You could tell who your best friend was,
because he was the one capable To pull out the case under your feet
if you decided to hang yourself up.
Which God could you pray, The same one of your torturers?
They used to say God is with us.
The color of silence
Eventually, I think it's worth tell that,
with the liberation from concentration camps by allied armies,
the pink triangles paradoxically did not recover their freedom;
according to those countries who maintained paragraph 175,
they spent the rest of their sentences in jail.
So it was done.
The Christian Cross will be removed from all churches
and it'll be substituted by the only visible symbol, the swastika.
I hear you deported souls
cold threads of human breath passing through me.
Seek for hope.
Do not talk about justice.
Come to me, fleshes, come to me, let yourselves die,
let your spirit come to me.
I'll give you back serenity.
The eternal serenity, the serenity your fellows denied you.
Same flesh, same ash.
Thou, ash, hiding silences of desperate screams
never listened and respected.
Come, come to me, if this can cheer you up.
I'll commit myself to make this execution end.
I'll make them shout enough! Enough in every language.
Come, come to me.
Come.
Belgium
Same-sex partners can get married,
thanks to a project presented by the government coalition
liberals, socialists and ecologists.
Croatia
Approved a law on same-sex civil unions grants same-sex partners
of at least of 3 years the same rights as enjoyed
by unmarried cohabiting opposite sex partners inheritance, financial support.
Denmark
Granted full range of protections, responsibilities and benefits as marriage,
in state pension, immigration and adoption,
including arrangements for the breakdown of the relationship.
Homosexuals can join in a church wedding,
for Danish Lutheran Church agreed to marry same-sex couples.
Finland
Grants similar rights and responsibilities as married partners for over 18.
Registration and dissolution undertaken in a similar manner to marriage.
Adoption is not permitted.
France
Civil Solidarity Pact Act (PACS), then so called "Light Marriage".
Joint taxation, inheritance and welfare benefits are available,
Arrangements for the breakdown of the relationship are granted.
Germany
Gay and lesbian partners are able to register themselves as official couple
to change their last names and same inheritance tax exemptions as married couples.
Allows adoption for children of previous marriage or born by artificial insemination.
Great Britain
It's called Civil Partnership Bill
the law gives to the homosexuals couple the same rights of the other couples.
Greece
There's no law, as in Italy, for marriage or registered partnership
cohabitation law for same-sex partners.
In this strong influenced Catholic country
no law for couple of same-sex partners has been ever approved.
Iceland
The first country in the world to grant rights to same-sex couples children.
Israel
Israel Parliament grants rights for same-sex marriages,
Joint taxation and inheritance rights are available.
But there's no legal acts for gay unions and only church marriages are recognized.
Homosexuality in Israel was prosecuted according to law until 1988.
Luxembourg
A partnership Law was approved from a government
ruled by the Christian Social Party, leaded by Jean-Claude Junker.
He answered to the Bishop who criticize him:
"We provide a Christian values based policy, let the church heal his souls."
Norway
Law Grants registration for the same-sex couples.
This law grants adoption rights just like heterosexual couples.
Netherlands
The law grants to same-sex partners of at least 3 years cohabitation
to adopt children.
They cannot adopt a child from abroad, to avoid disputes with other countries.
Poland
Law grants same-sex partners to get married.
Same property regime and inheritance benefits are granted.
No adoption is permitted.
Portugal
Legislation extends to same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples
living in a de facto union for more than two years. No adoption is permitted.
Czech Republic
Registered Partnership Bill was rejected just for a vote by the parliament.
Slovenia
Registered Partnership Bill was rejected by the parliament.
Hungary'
There's no more distinction between heterosexuals and homosexuals in register their cohabitation.
The law gives gay couples rights to register their unions and have rights and benefits.
But it's forbidden to join gay organizations for the under 18's.
Spain
The Very Catholic Spain is the first Latin country to grant marriages between gay.
The Iberian Church protested and the extreme concessions made,
as adoption is allowed, puzzled many members
inside Zapatero's socialist party, too.
There was changes in some articles of the Civil Code.
Article 44 of the civil code has been changed, before it said:
A man and a woman has the right to get married,
and now it says: any person has the right to get married
The Article 66 said: Man and Wife are equal in rights and duties
Now it says: Partners are equal in rights and duties
History had teach us we can get free from regimes,
but not from prejudices.
During the '70, gay liberation groups revived the pink triangle
as a popular symbol of gay rights movement.
Today, for many people, the pink triangle represents the pride, the solidarity
and the promise not to let