He had a very successful career in cabaret and film before World War II, but was then forbidden to work and was sent to Theresienstadt Ghetto after the Nazis had occupied the Netherlands, where he and his family had fled to.

[1] In 1928, Gerron appeared as "Tiger" Brown in the Berlin premiere of The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper), by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm.

Gerron was in the middle of directing Kind Ich Freu Mich Auf Dein Kommen at UFA Studios when he was marched off the set by Nazi soldiers on 1 April 1933, the day of the "national boycott on German Jewry".

[1] Gerron left Nazi Germany with his wife and parents, travelling first to Paris, then to Vienna, and later to Amsterdam,[1] where they occupied a house at Frans van Mierisstrat 78, bovenhuis.

In 1937, Gestapo headquarters in Lüneburg issued an order which forbade truck drivers from displaying pictures on their vehicles of the Nazi officer Ernst Röhm, as well as Gerron and Fritz Grünbaum, a Jewish Austrian cabaret artist.

In 1944, Gerron was coerced into directing a Nazi propaganda film intended to be viewed in "neutral" nations such as Switzerland, Sweden, and Ireland, for example, showing how "humane" conditions were at Theresienstadt.

[1] Gerron's script, submitted to Commandant Karl Rahm, was based around the theme of water, including rivers, bathtubs, showers, and irrigation ditches, and was approved by the authorities.

[2] Once filming was finished, Gerron and members of the jazz pianist Martin Roman's Ghetto Swingers were deported on the camp's final train transport to Auschwitz on 28 October 1944.

Gerron and his wife were murdered in the gas chamber immediately upon arrival on 30 October 1944,[6][7] along with the film's entire performing entourage (except for Roman and guitarist Coco Schumann).

On 17 June 2022 a Stolperstein (memorial for victims of the Nazi regime) for Kurt Gerron and one for his wife, Olga Gerson, were installed at Paulsborner Strasse 77, Berlin, their last residence in Germany.