In 1932 Berlin, Bertie, an employee of the renowned Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institute of Sexual Science, works to improve queer rights in Germany and beyond. Bertie and his friends spend their nights at the Eldorado Club, the epicenter of Berlin's thriving queer community and a symbol of freedom and personal expression to visitors from around the world. But everything changes when Hitler becomes chancellor, raids the institute, and declares a pogrom against queer people. Bertie barely escapes with his girlfriend, Sofie, to a nearby farm, where they take on the identities of an elderly couple and live for more than a decade in isolation, narrowly avoiding the suspicions of neighbors. In the final days of the war, with their freedom finally in sight, Bertie and Sophie find a young trans man who has collapsed on their property, still dressed in his Holocaust prison clothes, and vow to protect him-not from the Nazis, but from the Allied Forces who are arresting queer prisoners, while liberating the rest of the country. Moving and deeply humane, The Lilac People tells a story inspired by real events and recovers an occluded moment of trans history.
