Prisoner of Paradise (2011) on Netflix

NR20111h 36mBiography Documentary

Kurt Gerron is a cabaret performer and film actor in Berlin. The Nazis deport him to the Theresienstadt camp and order him to write and direct a propaganda film about it.

Netflix3.7/5
IMDb7.5/10445 votes
Rotten Tomatoes82%

Plot summary

Kurt Gerron's career in Berlin cabaret and film spans the 1920s and early 1930s. He sings Mack the Knife in the first production of The Threepenny Opera and appears in a supporting role in The Blue Angel. When the Nazis come to power, Josef von Sternberg and Peter Lorre warn him to leave Germany. He stays, then continues his entertainment work in Paris and Amsterdam. In 1943 the Nazis capture him and send him with other Jews to the Theresienstadt camp near Prague. The camp is promoted as a model settlement where Jews are well treated, and Gerron is recruited to write and direct a propaganda film that presents it that way.

Cast

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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Prisoner of Paradise (2011)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

In 1944 the Nazis recruited Gerron to write and direct a 23-minute propaganda film, Theresienstadt, presenting the concentration camp as a wonderful place; that year they promoted it as a model settlement where Jews were well treated and allowed an International Red Cross visit to placate the Danish government.
Before the war Gerron sang "Mack the Knife" in the initial production of Brecht's The Threepenny Opera and appeared in a supporting role in Josef von Sternberg's classic German sound film The Blue Angel, co-starring Marlene Dietrich.
When the Nazis came to power, Gerron remained in Germany, in spite of serious warnings from von Sternberg and Peter Lorre that he should leave the country.
SPOILER
Despite his cooperation, Gerron and his wife were included in the liquidation of the ghetto and deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where they were both murdered.