Film composer James Horner died when his single-engine plane crashed near Santa Barbara on June 22. Earlier this year, the Academy Award-winner worked with USC Shoah Foundation on a movie about a Holocaust survivor. These are the recollections of producer Leslie Wilson.

What makes Gad Beck’s story so remarkable, however, was that not only was he a “Mischling” but he was also a gay teenager living in Nazi Berlin, the epicenter of a military power antagonistic to both Jews and gays.