Kurt Gerron


Kurt Gerron 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 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, having started to perform on stage around 1920.

Acting and filmmaking career

Gerron first appeared on stage in a cabaret performance called Kuka in Berlin. He joined the Wilden Buhne cabaret troupe in 1921, subsequently working with several other troupes as well as working under theatre director Max Reinhardt. Around the same time, he started taking parts in silent films, later also finding success in talkies.
In 1928, Gerron appeared as "Tiger" Brown in the Berlin premiere of The Threepenny Opera, 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 played Kiepert the magician in the film, The Blue Angel, with Marlene Dietrich. During the following three years, he appeared in many films and also directed many more, attaining a high degree of success. He was offered a trip to Hollywood, but chose to stay in Germany.

Under the Nazis

After the 1933 seizure of power by the Nazis, 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".
Gerron left Nazi Germany with his wife and parents, travelling first to Paris, then to Vienna, and later to Amsterdam, where they occupied a house at Frans van Mierisstrat 78, bovenhuis. 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.
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. In September 1943, Gerron and his wife Olga were arrested and sent to Westerbork, where he continued to perform cabaret.

Theresienstadt

On 25 February 1944 Gerron and his wife were sent to the Theresienstadt Ghetto. There he was forced by the SS to stage the cabaret review, Karussell, 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.
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. 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, along with the film's entire performing entourage. 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. All known complete prints of the film, which was to have been called Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet, and which is also referred to as Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt, were destroyed. Gerron's notes that he wrote during the filming survived. Today the film exists only in fragmentary form. A 23-minute film, without subtitles, is available for educational use. 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 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, later known as Olga Gerson-Meyer.

In film and literature

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.
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.

Selected filmography

The Haunting of Castle Kitay