dictates of the SS; his creative role was minimal. Although he is usually credited with directorship of the film, Gerron's role in the filming was more symbolic than substantial, according to Spanish film historian Rafael de España. Eyewitnesses report that Gerron was constantly urging Jews to behave as mirthfully as the Germans wished and organizing mass scenes. However, SS men oversaw the filming, and Rahm and even Günther supervised scenes. When Rahm was not present on set, Gerron had to send him detailed reports. Filming took place over eleven days between 16 August and 11 September 1944. The assistant directors were František Zelenka, Jo Spier, and . Karel Pečený and his company Aktualita provided the cameramen, and halfway through filming, Pečený effectively took over as director. The two cameramen were Ivan Frič and Čeněk Zahradníček, assisted by Benda Rosenwein. The film's soundtrack has been credited to Jaroslav Sechura and Josef Francek. Aktualita collaborated with the German newsreel company Favoritfilm in producing the film. Prisoners of stereotypically Jewish appearance who were not obviously malnourished were chosen to appear in the film. They were given time off work for rehearsals and filming, and those unwilling to appear were threatened with harsh punishment. On 28 October, Gerron was deported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered, never seeing even a preliminary version of the film. The film was cut by Ivan Frič, who did not use Gerron's proposals for cutting or any of the scripts, but instead using the same improvised technique that he used for Aktualita's weekly newsreels. Frič had to cut the ending three times before Günther accepted it. The final cut bore little resemblance to Gerron's July script, his later editing proposal, or his creative vision for the film. In March, Aktualita sent a crew to the camp in order to collect some samples of "Jewish music", including snippets of the work of Felix Mendelssohn, Jacques Offenbach, and the children's opera Brundibár by Theresienstadt prisoner Hans Krása. The music was performed under the direction of Danish Jewish composer Peter Deutsch, who had experience with film soundtracks before the war. The SS completed the film on 28 March 1945, in time to present to the ICRC delegation that arrived on 6 April 1945. Content Testimonies agree that the film ran about 90 minutes, the standard length. Survivors remember what was filmed, but not which scenes were used in the final version. Although