True Story in 'Hitler Presents Town to Jews
By HERBERT G. Lurr
(Copyright 1979, JTA, Inc.)
Not long before his death last
December, I talked with Josef
von Sternberg of his motion pic-
ture classic, "The Blue Angel,"
which catapulted Marlene Dietrich
to fame and, after almost a life-
time, netted the director the high-
est cultural award from West
Germany.
When we came to discuss the
character of Kiepert, the impre-
sario-magician of "The Blue An-
gel" (portrayed in the -ill-fated
20th Century-Fox remake of 1959
by Theodore Bikel), I learned that
Von Sternberg was not aware of
the tragic events that led to the
death of Kurt Gerron, who had
created the role in Berlin in 1929
and received screen credit, in third
position, right after the names of
Emil Jannings and Miss Dietrich.
Jannings film, "Variety.' Simulta-
neously, fin versatile Gerron ap-
peared in Trude Hesterberg's lit-
erary cabaret, "Die Musenschau-
kel," which lampooned German
chauvinism, the Weimar Republic,
and the bourgeoisie in general.
Later, Gerron portrayed one of
the roles in the long-run stage pro-
duction of Brecht-Weill's "The
Three Penny Opera," and his voice
still can be heard as the narrator
on a Capitol recording of that
adaptation. In 1930, Gerron ap-
peared with Dolly Haas in the
first motion picture directed by
Anatole Litvak in Berlin.
Around 1931, Gerron became a
film director at UFA, first doing
a series of musical shorts, a vari-
ety show somewhat similar to to-
day's Ed Sullivan television pro-
gram. Quickly he advanced to fea-
ture motion pictures. and when
the Nazis took control of the Ger-
man government on Jan. 30, 1933,
Gerron had already completed
several top films. He also had
guided the first feature with young
Kurt Gerron was murdered by
the Nazis 25 years ago, after he
made his last, forced appear-
ance as film director under the
direct supervision of Dr. Goeb-
Louise Rainer—his screen discov-
bels in the Crehrxdovakian town
ery who was to become twice an
of Terezin (Theresienstadt). Not
Academy
Award winner in Holly-
even the Hollywood remake of
wood.
of "The Blue Angel" lifted the
Gerron,
who had ridiculed Hit-
curtain on an infamous episode
ler many times from the night
of World War IL
club stage, fled to Vienna and
Burly, good-natured Kurt Gerron
from there went to Carlsbad in
(Gerson), born May 11, 1897, a
Czechoslovakia.
native of Berlin and graduate of
When life became difficult in the
its university, had been with the
Reinhardt Theatres from 1920 to nazified Sudetenland, Gerron de-
1925, when he made his screen cided to settle in Holland in 1936,
debut as a villain in an earlier where he made his first Dutch
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picture. A year later, Gerron won
the acclaim, of public and press
with the fillnization of a Dutch
best-seller "Youth." In 1938, he
directed a Dutch-Italian co-venture,
"Three Wishes,' which was a great
flop at thin box office. After that
disappointment, Gerron confined
his artistic activities to his forte, a
literary cabaret—the s h a r ply
pointed political night club type
that had been so much in demand
in pre-Hitler Berlin, though the
Germans themselves had learned
nothing from their image on the
stage.
When, in the spring of 1940, Hit-
ler's Panzer divisions overran the
Low Countries in less than one
week, the majority of Jewish and
other anti-Fascist refugees were
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who had worked with Gerron, in-
cluding Jannings, dared not, or
anyhow did not, show any sym-
pathy for their Jewish fellow-
artists. Fritz Gruenbaum, Max
Ehrlich, Paul Morgan and Otto
Wallburg wound up in the gas
chambers and ovens of Auschwitz
and Treblinka.
On the verge of losing the war
and almost ready to bargain for
their own lives and earthly pos-
sessions, top members of the Nazi
hierarchy now applied a new tac-
tic to cover up years of atrocities
and wanton mass murder by a
propaganda campaign aimed at
the International Red Cross, the
Pope, the King of Sweden, and
the heads of other neutral coun-
tries and, perhaps, at soft-hearted
Americans. Among the ingenious
schemes, the production of so-
called "documentary" motion pic-
tures showing the benevolent spirit
of the Germans towards those they
had taken under their protective
wings were authorized by the min-
istry of propaganda. In Terezin,
Gerron was selected to direct a
special feature, "Der Fuehrer
schenkt den Juden eine Stadt"
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the Jews"). Refusal of such an
assignment would have meant cer-
tain liquidation.
A Happy Holiday to All. Our Relatives
Orders were given by the com-
Friends and Patrons
mander of Theresienstadt to have
the muddy streets and alleys of
the ghetto city cleaned of debris
and rubble. The whole town was
I scrubbed and disinfected. Fright-
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and those too badly beaten were
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tiness of life behind barbed wire I
(Continued on Page 49)
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under German supervision. In
1941, a Jewish theater for Jewish
audiences was established in Am-
sterdam. One of the many paradox.
ical notions of the "Greater Ger-
man Reich," Gerron was director
and performer, together with such
top talent of pre-Hitler's satirical
revues as Herbert and Rudolf Nel-
son, Willy Rosen, and many other
composers and lyricists of by-gone
days.
Step by step, privileges and
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caught in a trap. At first, the
Nazis allowed the Gerron group
to function on strict orders and
meager possibilities to earn a
livelihood were taken away from
the Jews in occupied Europe. In
1943, Gerron, together with many
others, was pleked up by the
Gestapo and thrown into the
Westerbork concentration camp
in Holland. On Feb. 25, 1944, his
turn came to be shipped off to
the East in a cattle train. The
world knew little then about Um-
schlrigplatx Theresienstadt, the
former town of Terezin in occu-
pied and annexed Czechoslovakia,
where my own next of kin un-
beknown to me perished , around
1943.
Stars of Germany and Austria's
stage and screen, such as those
TIE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
43—Friday, Octirhar 2, 1970
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