Career
Harlan would later direct the anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda film Jud Süß (1940) at the insistence of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. In 1920, Gerson was cast to appear in the successful film adaptation of the Karl May penned novel Auf den Trümmern des Paradieses (On the Brink of Paradise) and later followed that same year in another May adaptation entitled Die Todeskarawane (Caravan of ). Both films included Hungarian actor Béla Lugosi in the cast.
Both films are now lost films.
Gerson continued to perform as a popular cabaret singer throughout the 1920s as well as acting in films. By 1933 however, when the Nazi Party came to power in Germany, the German-Jewish population was systematically stripped of rights and Gerson"s career slowed dramatically.
Blacklisted from performing in "Aryan" films, Gerson began recording music for a small Jewish record company. She also began recording in the Yiddish language during this time and the 1936 song "Der Rebe Hot Geheysn Freylekh Zayn" became highly regarded by the Jews of Europe in the 1930s.
Gerson"s most memorable recordings from this era were the songs "Backbord und Steuerbord" and "Vorbei" (Beyond Recall), which was an emotional ballad, memorializing pre-Nazi Germany:
In 1936, Gerson relocated with relatives to the Netherlands, fleeing Nazi persecution.
On 10 May 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands and the Jews there were subject to the same anti-Semitic laws and restrictions as in Germany. After several years of living under oppressive Nazi occupation, the Gerson family began to plan to escape. In 1942, Gerson and her family were seized trying to flee to Switzerland, a neutral nation in World World War II Europe.
The family were sent by railroad car to transit camp Westerbork bound for the Nazi camp of Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland.