Barney Frank to Keynote Holocaust Center Exhibit Opening

The Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus in Farmington Hills will host former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) as keynote speaker Jan. 5, 2014, for the opening of its new exhibit, “Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals, 1933-1945.” 

On display through May 4, 2014, the exhibit chronicles the Nazi campaign against homosexuality that targeted more than one million German men who, the state asserted, carried a "degeneracy" that threatened the "disciplined masculinity" of Germany.  Denounced as "antisocial parasites" and "enemies of the state," more than 100,000 men were arrested under a broadly interpreted law against homosexuality.

Tickets for the 4:30 p.m. event are general admission and cost $18 ($10 for Holocaust Memorial Center members) and must be purchased prior to the event, by calling Lawrence at 248-553-2400, ext. 24, or writing to lawrence.willim@holocaustcenter.org.  

Serving in Congress from 1981-2012, Barney Frank has been a leader in the fight against discrimination, championed civil rights and financial reform, and was an architect of the financial regulations aimed at preventing a recurrence of the financial crisis. 

In 1987, he became the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as openly gay, and in 2012, he married his longtime partner, becoming the nation’s first Congressman in a same-sex marriage while in office.

“During the Holocaust, it was not just the Jews who were persecuted, but everyone who did not fit the Nazis description of the ‘perfect race’,” said Holocaust Memorial Center Executive Director Stephen M. Goldman. “Through exhibits like Nazis Persecution of Homosexuals, our goal is to demonstrate how we can work with one another to make sure that something like this never happens again.”