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Actor Ian Holm stoically narrates Gerron’s life, a fascinating study of great talent, energy, and miscalculation. A decorated veteran return to Germany after World War I, Gerron foreswore a medical career by a chance nightclub performance. Large and bulky, with earthy facial expression, his warmth and charisma charmed 1920s audiences. In short order, Gerron became a leading character actor of the Berlin stage and later won acclaim for directing many films. His home at Stolpensee Lake outside Berlin became one of the city’s major salons in the years of Weill and Brecht. An early expressionistic satirist of the Nazis, Gerron first tried to stick it out in Hitler’s Germany, but eventually fled to Paris in mid-1933. There and later in Amsterdam, he professionally reinvented himself. As war drew near, he debated whether or not to leave the continent for America. Once offered coach passage by Hollywood friends on a ship, he declined the ticket because it was not first class. This was a fateful decision. Gerron soon became a prisoner of the Nazis again, when in 1940 they occupied the Netherlands. Gerron was also singled out by name and sight in the widely distributed hate film, The Eternal Jew (1940). For a time, he continued working in the all-Jewish Hollandische Schomburg Theater, but was eventually deported to the nearby Westerbork transit camp. For a time, he won a brief reprieve by organizing light music and comedy productions for S.S. Kommandant Albert Gemmeker. On Feb. 25, 1944, Gerron was deported by cattle car to Theresienstadt (or Terezin) near Prague, the “model” camp maintained by the Nazis to quarter “prominent” Jews and war veterans.
Theresienstadt, an old Austrian army fortress, was soon overcrowded with some 40,000 people on its grounds. The solid edifice belied the reality. This was a way station of disease and malnutrition – the ultimate destination for its inhabitants was Auschwitz. Gerron quickly took a role in directing productions in the camp and memorably sang “Karrousel” with its unintentionally mocking lyrics: “We’re riding wooden horses…It’s a strange journey, destination...We cannot escape the circle.”
Seeking to quell rumors abounding on the Jewish fate, the S.S. applied a coat of paint to Theresienstadt, planted flowers, opened a music pavilion with orchestra, and fixed up a few cafes for duping a visiting Swiss Red Cross official. This “Potemkin Village” ruse worked, thus inspiring S. S. Kommandant Karl Rahm to order Gerron to produce a cheery film about the camp for distribution to neutral countries. The ensuing documentary was made in late summer and featured a Jewish stage ensemble with carefully chosen brunette children, a full concert orchestra, and seven-men soccer teams entertaining juvenile spectators. Once the documentary was completed, Rahm resumed his deportations to Auschwitz, which included most of the cast members appearing in The Fuehrer Gives a City to the Jews. The eleventh and final transport on Oct. 28, 1944, included the now spirit-broken Gerron. He was immediately gassed upon arrival in Auschwitz. The next day, Himmler ordered destruction of the camp’s extermination facilities.
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