Steve Levitt simultaneously tackles AIDS, angels, faith, and the Holocaust in his 1993 accomplished and affecting drama, Deaf Heaven, about a young man tending to his dying lover.

A man who is losing his lover to AIDS encounters a Jewish Holocaust survivor in a sauna at his health club. The survivor senses the man’s sadness. After the young man shares his impending loss, the survivor shares what it means to lose someone within a historical context and what it means to be a witness to history.

Deaf Heaven is a landmark work that offered an early clear and strong comparison yet between the AIDS pandemic and the Holocaust.