Kurt Gerron | |
---|---|
Born | Kurt Gerson 11 May 1897 |
Died | 30 October 1944 47) | (aged
Occupation(s) | Actor, film director |
Years active | 1920–1944 |
Kurt Gerron (born Kurt Gerson; 11 May 1897 – 30 October 1944) was a German Jewish actor and film director. He had a very successful career in cabaret and film before World War II, but was then forbidden to work and was sent to Theresienstadt Ghetto after the Nazis had occupied the Netherlands, where he and his family had fled to. He was forced by the Nazis to make a propaganda film about Theresienstadt, officially named Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet , before he and his wife, Olga Gerson-Meyer, were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp and murdered. The film was completed not long before the end of the war, but was never shown to the public, and only fragments remain.
Kurt Gerron was born as Kurt Gerson in Berlin, Germany, on 11 May 1897, the only child of Max and Toni (née Riese) Gerson. His father ran a clothing business. [1]
He was badly injured twice during combat after enlisting in the German Army during World War I, so was discharged. He started studying medicine, and re-enlisted in the army as a doctor after two years. He completed his studies after the war ended, but decided to embark on a career in acting a year later, [1] having started to perform on stage around 1920. [2]
Gerron first appeared on stage in a cabaret performance called Kuka in Berlin. He joined the Wilden Buhne ("Wild Stage") cabaret troupe in 1921, subsequently working with several other troupes as well as working under theatre director Max Reinhardt. [1] Around the same time, he started taking parts in silent films, later also finding success in talkies. [1]
In 1928, Gerron appeared as "Tiger" Brown in the Berlin premiere of The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper), by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. This was highly successful, and the song "Mack the Knife", sung by Gerron, was recorded and became a hit across Europe. In 1930, he Kiepert the magician in the film, The Blue Angel (Der Blaue Engel), with Marlene Dietrich. During the following three years, he appeared in many films and also directed many more, attaining a high degree of success. [1] He was offered a trip to Hollywood, but chose to stay in Germany. [2]
After the 1933 seizure of power by the Nazis (known today as the Machtergreifung ), Gerron, along with other Jewish actors, musicians, film and theatre people, were forced out of their jobs. Gerron was in the middle of directing Kind Ich Freu Mich Auf Dein Kommen at UFA Studios when he was marched off the set by Nazi soldiers on 1 April 1933, the day of the "national boycott on German Jewry". [1]
Gerron left Nazi Germany with his wife and parents, travelling first to Paris, then to Vienna, and later to Amsterdam, [1] where they occupied a house at Frans van Mierisstrat 78, bovenhuis. [2] He continued work there as an actor at the Stadsschouwburg and directed several movies. Several times he was offered employment in Hollywood through the agency of Peter Lorre and Josef von Sternberg, but Gerron refused to leave Europe.
In 1937, Gestapo headquarters in Lüneburg issued an order which forbade truck drivers from displaying pictures on their vehicles of the Nazi officer Ernst Röhm, as well as Gerron and Fritz Grünbaum, a Jewish Austrian cabaret artist. [1]
After the Wehrmacht occupied the Netherlands in May 1940, Gerron continued to work as a performer and director for three years. His parents were deported on 5 May 1943, and murdered in Sobibor after being interned in the transit camp at Westerbork. [1] [3] In September 1943, Gerron and his wife Olga were arrest and sent to Westerbork, where he continued to perform cabaret. [1]
On 25 February 1944 Gerron and his wife were sent to the Theresienstadt Ghetto. [1] There he was forced by the SS to stage the cabaret review, Karussell, [3] in which he reprised Mack the Knife, as well as compositions by Martin Roman [4] and other imprisoned musicians and artists.
In 1944, Gerron was coerced into directing a Nazi propaganda film intended to be viewed in "neutral" nations such as Switzerland, Sweden, and Ireland, for example, showing how "humane" conditions were at Theresienstadt. [5] The film had originally been planned in December 1943, but had been interrupted by a visit to Theresienstadt by a Red Cross delegation in June 1944. Ahead of the planned visit, the Nazis cleaned up the camp and deported large numbers of Jews to Auschwitz concentration camp to avoid the appearance of overcrowding in the ghetto. The delegates were only allowed to speak to selected residents, under SS supervision, and the deception worked; the report stated that the city was "like any other", and the delegates did not investigate the thousands of Jews who passed through on their way to concentration camps. [1]
Gerron's script, submitted to Commandant Karl Rahm, was based around the theme of water, including rivers, bathtubs, showers, and irrigation ditches, and was approved by the authorities. [2] Once filming was finished, Gerron and members of the jazz pianist Martin Roman's Ghetto Swingers were deported on the camp's final train transport to Auschwitz on 28 October 1944. Gerron and his wife were murdered in the gas chamber immediately upon arrival on 30 October 1944, [6] [7] along with the film's entire performing entourage (except for Roman and guitarist Coco Schumann). The next day, Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler ordered the closure of the gas chambers.
The film was completed in March 1945, and was never shown to the public. [1] All known complete prints of the film, which was to have been called Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet (Terezin: A Documentary Film of the Jewish Resettlement), and which is also referred to as Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt (The Führer Gives the Jews a City), were destroyed. Gerron's notes that he wrote during the filming survived. [1] Today the film exists only in fragmentary form. A 23-minute film, without subtitles, is available for educational use. [8] The lists that Gerron wrote and edited during the filming survived
There is a star for Gerron on the Walk of Fame of Cabaret in Mainz, Germany.
On 17 June 2022 a Stolperstein (memorial for victims of the Nazi regime) for Kurt Gerron and one for his wife, Olga Gerson, were installed at Paulsborner Strasse 77, Berlin, their last residence in Germany.[ citation needed ]
In 1924 he married Olga-Olly Meyer, [1] later known as Olga Gerson-Meyer. [2]
Gerron is the subject of or features in several documentary films:
Roy Kift wrote a play about Gerron's time in Theresienstadt entitled Camp Comedy. The play is published in The Theatre of the Holocaust, Volume 2, edited by Robert Skloot and published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 1999. [16]
The historical novel Gerron, written in German by Swiss author Charles Lewinsky and published in six languages, [17] was shortlisted for the Swiss Book Prize in 2011. [18]
The story of Gerron and the propaganda film is mentioned in Colum McCann's 2020 novel Apeirogon , about two men, one Palestinian, the other Israeli, who each lost a daughter in the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. [19] [20] [21]
Camp Westerbork, also known as Westerbork transit camp, was a Nazi transit camp in the province of Drenthe in the Northeastern Netherlands, during World War II. It was located in the municipality of Westerbork, current-day Midden-Drenthe. Camp Westerbork was used as a staging location for sending Jews, Sinti and Roma to concentration camps elsewhere.
Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination camps. Its conditions were deliberately engineered to hasten the death of its prisoners, and the ghetto also served a propaganda role. Unlike other ghettos, the exploitation of forced labor was not economically significant.
Rafael Schächter, was a Czechoslovak composer, pianist and conductor of Jewish origin, organizer of cultural life in Terezín concentration camp.
Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet, unofficially Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt, was a black-and-white projected Nazi propaganda film. It was directed by the German Jewish prisoner Kurt Gerron and the Czech filmmaker Karel Pečený under close SS supervision in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, and edited by Pečený's company, Aktualita. Filmed mostly in the autumn of 1944, it was completed on 28 March 1945 and screened privately four times. After the war, the film was lost but about twenty minutes of footage was later rediscovered in various archives.
Peter Kien was a Jewish artist and poet. He was active at the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Max Michaelis Ehrlich was a German Jewish actor, screenwriter, and director on the German theater, comedy and cabaret scene of the 1930s.
Prisoner of Paradise is a 2002 documentary film directed by Malcolm Clarke and Stuart Sender. The film is an international co-production of Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and tells the true story of Kurt Gerron, a German-Jewish cabaret and film actor and director in the 1920s and 1930s who was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia during World War II. There, Gerron was ordered to write and direct a Nazi propaganda film, Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet, before being deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he and his wife Olga were murdered on 30 October 1944.
Voices of the Children is a 1999 Emmy-Award winning documentary film written and directed by Zuzana Justman. It tells the story of three people who were imprisoned as children in the Terezin concentration camp. It was produced and shown on television in the United States.
Lisl Frank was a Czech Jewish singer, dancer and actress. She achieved success before World War II.
Spuren nach Theresienstadt / Tracks to Terezín is a 2007 film with Herbert Thomas Mandl, a survivor of the Holocaust.
Fritz Weiss was a Czech jazz musician and arranger, active in the first half of the 20th century. He was an organizer of jazz performances and an important participant in the musical life of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Weiss was murdered in the Holocaust.
Karl Rahm was a Sturmbannführer (major) in the German Schutzstaffel who, from February 1944 to May 1945, served as the commandant of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Rahm was the third and final commander of the camp, succeeding Siegfried Seidl and Anton Burger. He was hanged for war crimes.
Martin Roman was a German Jewish jazz pianist and Holocaust survivor.
The Ghetto Swingers were a jazz band organised in the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt.
Hans Günther was an SS-Sturmbannführer who was the head of the "Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Prague" during World War II. He was in charge of the deportation of Czech Jews to death camps during the Holocaust. He was killed by Czech partisans in 1945.
Roy Kift is an English actor and playwright who is resident in Germany. He is best known for his 1980 play Stronger than Superman.
Eugen Burg was a German actor. His daughter was Hansi Burg. Burg was a close friend of the actor Hans Albers.
Alfréd Meissner was a Czechoslovak politician and member of the Social Democratic Party in the First Czechoslovak Republic. He was elected to the National Assembly and served twice as Minister of Justice and twice as Minister of Social Welfare of the republic. Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia during the Second World War, he was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. He survived the Holocaust, and after the war he returned to Prague where he died at the age of 79.
Karel Švenk, sometimes referred to in German as Karl Schwenk, was a Czech cabaret artist, comedian, songwriter and writer. A leading figure in the cabaret at the Theresienstadt Ghetto, Švenk was eventually sent to Auschwitz and later to Meuselwitz. He died on a death march from Kraslice about two weeks before the end of the war. Being completely exhausted and unable to continue, his friend hid him in the straw in the barn where the prisoners spent the night. It is unknown whether he died of exhaustion or was discovered by the SS and shot.
[Kurt Gerron] arrived in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt in 1944 and was forced by the SS to stage the review Karussell (Carousel)...
A short excerpt from the booklet essay by Roy Kift.