Max Ehrlich

Max Ehrlich (1892-1944) was one of the most celebrated actors and directors on the German comedy and cabaret scene of the 1930s.

In 1933, the National Socialists seized power and stopped Ehrlich and his other Jewish colleagues from working in Germany. As a result, he left for Vienna to appear with the Rudolf Nelson Revue. However, there too, Austrian anti-Semites interrupted the show with cries of "Jews, get out of Vienna." Consequently, the troupe left for The Netherlands, stopping en route for stage appearances in Switzerland.

The homesickness was stronger than the fear and Max Ehrlich returned to Germany in 1935, at a time when Jewish artist were able to work under restricted conditions.

In 1937 he left Germany and with the help of Ernst Lubitsch he went to the USA. Unfortunately he was not able to get work there, so he made the fatal decision to return to Europe. In 1939 he went to Holland to Willy Rosen and his Theater der Prominente and stood there even when the German occupied the country.

Following the 1938 pogrom "Kristallnacht," he decided to leave Germany definitively. Both of his farewell performances immediately sold out, so that a third presentation on 2 April 1939 was added. Here, in front of a full house of fans, calling out their affection and encouragement, Ehrlich made his final appearance in Germany.

But his brilliant career was brutally interrupted by the rise of Nazism and his resulting deportation in 1942 to Westerbork concentration camp in Holland. Amazingly, there behind the walls and barbed wire, Max Ehrlich formed a theater troupe composed of fellow prisoners - the majority of them also famous Jewish show business personalities - and produced high quality musical and comedy revues. This artistic activity provided the means for everyone concerned, audience and actors alike, to retain a small measure of humanity, free their minds - if only momentarily - from the tragedy of daily life and nourish the illusion of survival.

He was arrested in 1943 and was brought to the concentration camp Westerbork. There he became - similar to Kurt Gerron in Theresienstadt - the director of a theater group called "Camp Westerbork Theater Group" - existing from prisoners. The group could realise six main theater production in this camp and the group comprised till 50 members, often well-known artists from Berlin, Vienna and Holland.

During the summer of 1944, increasing numbers of transports carried Westerbork's prisoners to the extermination camps in the East. Of 104,000 camp inmates, fewer than 5,000 survived. In the last transport to leave Westerbork, on 4 September 1944, Ehrlich was number 151 on the list of victims.