An award-winning, authentic film about the Holocaust. "It’s a well done, very moving documentary." (Roman Polanski) The film title KURT GERRON'S CAROUSEL refers to the cabaret theater that Kurt Gerron started in 1943 while an inmate of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. A star of Berlin theater and cabaret life, and one of the most successful film directers at the UFA, Gerron, who was Jewish, emigrated to Paris in 1933 and then to Amsterdam, where he was interned in 1942, deported to Theresienstadt and finally murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. This film traces his life through the testimony of contemporaries, excerpts and song performancesof Kurt Gerron's work. He became known in the 1920s thanks to his song "I am the night specter". In 1928 Gerron played Tiger Brown in the premiere of "The Threepenny Opera” with the ballad of "Mack the Knife". When he came to Theresienstadt in 1943, he started a cabaret, where many concentration camp inmates might once again have a good laugh before they were transported to Auschwitz the next day. Here Gerron was convinced - with the promise to get free from the NS-persuaded - to direct the propaganda film "The Führer donates a City to the Jews”, in order to deceive the foreign countries about the true nature of Theresienstadt. Shortly thereafter Gerron ended up in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
An award-winning, authentic film about the Holocaust. "It’s a well done, very moving documentary." (Roman Polanski)
An award-winning, authentic film about the Holocaust. "It’s a well done, very moving documentary." (Roman Polanski)
The film title KURT GERRON'S CAROUSEL refers to the cabaret theater that Kurt Gerron started in 1943 while an inmate of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. A star of Berlin theater and cabaret life, and one of the most successful film directers at the UFA, Gerron, who was Jewish, emigrated to Paris in 1933 and then to Amsterdam, where he was interned in 1942, deported to Theresienstadt and finally murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.
This film traces his life through the testimony of contemporaries, excerpts and song performancesof Kurt Gerron's work. He became known in the 1920s thanks to his song "I am the night specter". In 1928 Gerron played Tiger Brown in the premiere of "The Threepenny Opera” with the ballad of "Mack the Knife". When he came to Theresienstadt in 1943, he started a cabaret, where many concentration camp inmates might once again have a good laugh before they were transported to Auschwitz the next day. Here Gerron was convinced - with the promise to get free from the NS-persuaded - to direct the propaganda film "The Führer donates a City to the Jews”, in order to deceive the foreign countries about the true nature of Theresienstadt. Shortly thereafter Gerron ended up in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.