Kurt Gerron

Passions

Vocation

German Jewish actor, singer and film director, whose popular cinema acting breakthrough came with The Blue Angel (Der Blaue Engel, 1930), playing Kiepert, the magician, opposite Marlene Dietrich. Two years before, Gerron originated the role of "Tiger" Brown in the 1928 premiere production of The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) at the Berlin Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, in which he also performed "Mack the Knife", the first public performance of the song. With the show's international success, Gerron's name and recorded voice became well known across Europe. After the 1933 seizure of power by the Nazis (known today as the Machtergreifung), Gerron left Nazi Germany with his wife and parents, travelling first to Paris and later to Amsterdam. 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 refused to leave Europe. After the Wehrmacht occupied the Netherlands, Gerron was first interned in the transit camp at Westerbork before being sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. 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 (in Switzerland, Sweden, and Ireland, for example) showing how "humane" conditions were at Theresienstadt. 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. Gerron and his wife were gassed immediately upon arrival, on 28 October 1944, 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. Link to Wikipedia biography