Kurt Gerron

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.

Early life and education 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.

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,

Acting and filmmaking career

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. in which he reprised Mack the Knife, as well as compositions by Martin Roman 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. 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. 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. The lists that Gerron wrote and edited during the filming survived

Recognition

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.

Personal life In 1924 he married Olga-Olly Meyer, accompanied by a booklet containing an essay by British writer Roy Kift Kurt Gerrons Karussell (1999), directed by Austrian Jewish documentary filmmaker Ilona Ziok starring Ute Lemper and Roy Kift Prisoner of Paradise (2002), directed by Malcolm Clarke and Stuart Sender; Tracks to Terezín (2007), which features Holocaust survivor Herbert Thomas Mandl talking about Gerron as the director of the film Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet

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.

The historical novel Gerron, written in German by Swiss author Charles Lewinsky and published in six languages, was shortlisted for the Swiss Book Prize in 2011.

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.