Stupéfiants

Kurt Gerron born in 1897 to Jewish parents in Germany, studied at first medicine, before he decided to become a stage actor in 1920. He came to the movies in 1926. On stage he starred in the original version of Bert Brecht’s and Kurt Weill’s “Dreigroschen Oper” as Tiger Brown, introducing the “Haifisch” song. In 1930, he became director at a Berlin theater, where he directed “Der Rote Faden” with Gustav Gruendgens, Grete Weiser and Marlene Dietrich. He also participated in the very successful movies “Die Drei von der Tankstelle” and “Der Blaue Engel”. The UFA also wanted him to work as a director and offered him the opportunity to direct a few short movies before directing his first of five feature films for this company. In 1933, he was forced by the Nazis to leave the UFA while working on the movie “Kind, ich freu mich auf dein Kommen (1933)” He left Germany, and after a few stops in in different European countries, he got a job in Holland as a director, where he worked with success. After the German invasion and occupation of the Netherlands in 1940, he appeared in the infamous propaganda movie “Der Ewige Jude” (1940). In 1943 he was sent to a concentration camp in Holland, where he organized and operated a small stage. In February 1944, he was sent to the concentration camp Theresienstadt, where he was forced to direct the propaganda-pseudo-documentary “Der Fuehrer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt (1944)” with the hope, he could help some of the prisoners there to stay in Theresienstadt and thus avoid being deported further East. However, he and his wife were deported to Auschwitz, where they were murdered in the gas chambers on 28 October 1944. —IMDb