Prisoner of Paradise

by Stuart Sender

A very interesting film about the making a Nazi Propoganda film is Prisoner of Paradise. It’s the story of Kurt Gerron who was a famous director in Berlin. When the Jews were rounded up in Germany during the Nazi reign, he was sent to the concentration camp Theresienstadt which was specifically for the Jews who “would be missed”. You know, the famous ones whose abscence would not go unnoticed.

It was demanded of Gerron that he produce a propoganda film for the Nazis that made Theresienstadt look like a virtual Utopia. Supposedly, this was to qualm the concerns about the neutral European countries (and anyone in the world) that were starting to ask too many questions about what was happening to the Jews. The film showed them happy and healthy in a utopian atmosphere even though that was not the case at all.

By many Jews, Gerron was considered a traitor. But how many people would have opted for death over doing what it is that they love and are good at? If you are an artist, then painting a portrait is painting a portrait. It’s easy to see how he might have gotten lost in the assignment. I’m not sure what I would have done. I wasn’t there and I can’t imagine being in his shoes. It’s an interesting question, though. He produced the film at gunpoint and was executed at Auschwitz shortly after it was produced.