Karoussel

Kurt Geron was a popular Jewish cabaret artist and comic actor active in German films during the '20s and early '30s. Best remembered for introducing the song "Mack the Knife" in Threepenny Opera and his role opposite Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel, Geron's bulky face and frame seemed perfect for playing men who were shady capitalists and con artists. When Hitler rose to power in 1933, Jews were quickly excluded from Germany's film industry, and Geron fled, initially to France, where he directed films, and later to the supposedly safe haven of Holland. Rounded up when the Nazis invaded the Dutch homeland, Geron was sent to Theresienstadt ghetto where, driven by the desire to make another film or perhaps the misguided hope that his life would be spared, Geron agreed to make the propaganda film Hitler Gives the Jews a City, meant to show the Red Cross that the ghetto was really a model camp. Shortly thereafter, Geron was deported and gassed at Auschwitz. Karoussel (the title refers to a cabaret act Geron put on while in the Theresienstadt ghetto) tells a sad tale, combining eyewitness accounts with original cabaret songs that provide an ironic counterpoint. Although Geron remains something of an enigma, this documentary--sometimes stranger than fiction--sheds light on a little known Holocaust tragedy and is recommended for larger collections. Aud: C, P. (S. Rees)