Dora Gerson (actress)

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Dorothea Gerson (* 23. March 1899 in Berlin , † 14. February 1943 in the Auschwitz concentration camp ) was a German silent film - actress and cabaret - singer .

Life

As the daughter of Polish parents, Dorothea Gerson graduated from Max Reinhardt's drama school at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin , took part in several Karl May films in 1920 ( Auf den Trümmern des Paradieses , Die Todeskarawane ) and had her first acting engagement as Dora Gerson at the Berlin Volksbühne .

In 1921 she played at the Thalia Theater and other Berlin theaters, but kept returning to the Volksbühne, where she appeared alongside Helene Weigel and Heinrich George as Galy Gay's wife in Bertolt Brecht's Mann ist Mann .

In 1922 she married the director Veit Harlan , from whom she was divorced in 1924.

In the 1923/24 season, the actress was named as a member of the Holtorf tour troupe . Members of this troupe were Mathias Wieman , Gerald Brosig , Ernst Ginsberg , Veit Harlan, Maria Heil , Ruth Hellberg , Hans Holtorf , Gerda Joswig , Hans Heinrich Klatt , Margarete Kyper , Ruth Ledermann , Hans Mahlau , August Rabien , Oskar von Schab , Werner Siedhoff , Walter Ullmann, Anette de Vries , Heinrich Wortmann and Willy Wortmann .

After separating from her husband, Dora Gerson played at various theaters in Berlin , including the Piscator stage . In addition, she appeared in numerous Berlin cabarets as a chanson singer and cabaret artist, including in the Tingel-Tangel-Theater , in the cabaret Die Rakete , bei der Brücke and with the Wasps , she appeared in the Netherlands in the Scheveningen Kurhaus-Cabaret , sang chansons based on texts by Kurt Tucholsky , Bertolt Brecht and Erich Kästner . Back in Berlin, from winter 1931 to March 1933 she was part of the ensemble of Werner Finck's political and literary cabaret Die Katakombe .

As early as August 1932, she was molested by the National Socialist press because of her Jewish origins . From 1933, Dora Gerson was no longer listed in the sound film guide. As a result of the Nuremberg race laws , she was banned from practicing her profession from 1935 . Her only option was to appear at events organized by the Jewish Cultural Association . She joined the German ping-pong cabaret in exile in the Netherlands, became a member of the Rudolf Nelson troupe and in 1934 went on tour of Switzerland with ping pong . In Zurich she appeared in the Cornichon cabaret , performed time-critical texts that alluded to political developments in Germany, sang chansons and joined the “Great Oratorio for Satisfied People” and the choir “We are against everyone who shuffles war cards. Poison gas is poison gas ".

When the Swiss authorities did not renew her residence permit, Dora Gerson returned to the Netherlands and in April 1935 back to Berlin. Here she recorded five records for the Lukraphon record company of the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden in the basement of a synagogue , including the songs “Gone”, “Port and Starboard - The World Has Become Small” and niggunim sung in Yiddish .

In 1936 Dora Gerson fled to the Netherlands and lived there as inconspicuously as possible after the invasion of the Wehrmacht , joined small cabaret ensembles and performed her songs in cinemas in order to shorten the break between two films for the cinema audience.

In Amsterdam in 1937 she married the Dutch textile manufacturer Max Sluizer. The marriage that gave her Dutch nationality had two children. In 1938 in Amsterdam she dubbed The Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , Walt Disney's first full-length cartoon, for the German theatrical release . However, the film was only shown publicly in Germany from 1951. More and more Dora Gerson withdrew from the stage, in February 1939 she had her last appearance.

When the German Wehrmacht invaded the Netherlands, a time of suffering began for Dora Gerson. Even in Amsterdam one now lived dangerously as a Jew. Her ex-husband Veit Harlan had come to terms with the National Socialists in the meantime and made a career as a director of monumental Nazi propaganda and perseverance films and was appointed professor by Hitler. When his anti-Semitic inflammatory film Jud Suss was shown in the Dutch cinemas, it made a decisive contribution to mobilizing the fascist mob in the Netherlands and creating a pogrom mood. A request for help from Dora Gerson to Harlan went unanswered.

In 1942 she tried to escape to Switzerland with her family . The family was discovered on the French side of the border by the Vichy-France gendarmerie and deported to the Drancy assembly camp near Paris and from there to the Westerbork transit camp , where they also appeared for their fellow prisoners and the guards.

She was deported in February 1943 and murdered in Auschwitz on February 14, 1943 , together with her second husband and two children from their second marriage.

Filmography

literature

  • Kay Less : Between the stage and the barracks. Lexicon of persecuted theater, film and music artists from 1933 to 1945 . With a foreword by Paul Spiegel . Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-10-9 , p. 132.
  • Katinka Dittrich, Hans Würzner: The Netherlands and German Exile 1933–1940 , Königstein 1982, ISBN 3-7610-8173-1 Chapter: Jacques Klöters: "Moments so, Moments so". Dora Gerson and the first émigré cabaret "Ping-Pong" , pp. 174–185
  • Kay Less: 'In life, more is taken from you than given ...'. Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 188

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Was a label from the special radio house Lukra , Berlin SW 68, Friedrichstrasse 208, telephone A2 4923, owner Moritz Lewin
  2. ↑ TIN GersonD, Theater Instituut Nederland, Amsterdam, http://www.theaterinstituut.nl : contains people archive a bundle to Dora Gerson.
  3. ↑ Horst J.-P. Bergmeier: Chronology of German cabaret in the Netherlands 1933–1943. Series of publications by the Paul Walter Jacob Archive, No. 6. Hamburg Office for German Exile Literature, 1998, p. 35.
personal data
SURNAME Gerson, Dora
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gerson, Dorothea
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German silent film actress and cabaret singer
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH February 14, 1943
Place of death Auschwitz concentration camp