Netflix changes new doc after Polish PM complained about Nazi maps
Netflix agrees to change The Devil Next Door documentary after Polish PM accused filmmakers of ‘rewriting history’ by showing Nazi death camps within modern Poland’s borders
- Netflix ‘will be adding text to some of the maps featured in’ The Devil Next Door
- Mateusz Morawiecki sent a letter to the CEO Monday to change the series
- The program chronicles Ohio man John Demjanjuk who was convicted of being an accessory to murder in 2011 after he was identified as being a Nazi guard
- The camps were built by the Nazis on Polish soil during their brutal occupation but the documentary map implies that Poland had control over the camps
- Netflix said Thursday: ‘This will make it clearer that the extermination and concentration camps in Poland were built and operated by German Nazi regime’
Netflix has said it will make changes to a documentary that featured maps showing German Nazi death camps inside the borders of modern Poland.
The streaming service said on Thursday it will amend Season 1 of The Devil Next Door after the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote in a letter to CEO Reed Hastings that filmmakers were ‘rewriting history’.
The series tells the true story of John Demjanjuk, a ‘retired Ukrainian-American autoworker living a peaceful life with his family in Cleveland, Ohio suburbs in the 1980s’ until a group of Holocaust survivors identify his photograph as notoriously cruel Nazi death camp guard ‘Ivan the Terrible’.
But some maps in the documentary were criticized by Morawiecki on Monday for implying that Poland existed at that time as an independent nation within its postwar borders.
Netflix ‘will be adding text to some of the maps featured in’ The Devil Next Door, after Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (pictured) complained that the documentary was ‘rewriting history’
The PM had urged Netflix to change documentary which has a map showing Nazi death camps inside the borders of modern Poland. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also tweeted about it
In a tweet Thursday, Netflix said: ‘We stand by the filmmakers of The Devil Next Door, their research and their work.
‘To avoid any misunderstanding, in the coming days we will be adding text to some of the maps featured in the series.’
The PM had said it suggested the country could share responsibility for the atrocities committed at the camps during World War Two.
‘This will make it clearer that the extermination and concentration camps in Poland were built and operated by the German Nazi regime who invaded the country and occupied it from 1939-1945,’ Netflix continued in their statement.
The prime minister addressed his letter to the Netflix CEO Reed Hastings (pictured) on Monday and wrote: ‘As my country did not even exist at that time as an independent state, and millions of Poles were murdered at these sites, this element of The Devil Next Door is nothing short of rewriting history’
The Devil Next Door chronicles the story of John Demjanjuk (pictured left) who was accused of being Nazi prison guard Ivan the Terrible, extradited from Ohio to Israel, and convicted of war crimes in 2011. Netflix said they ‘will be adding text to some of the maps featured in the series’
The Devil Next Door chronicles the story of how Demjanjuk was accused of having been a guard at the camps that were built by the Nazis on Polish soil during their brutal occupation of Poland in World War Two.
‘Ivan the Terrible’ tortured and killed nearly one million Jewish prisoners.
‘Demjanjuk’s American dream was shattered when he was extradited to Israel to stand trial for crimes against humanity,’ a Netflix description reads.
‘Israel is transfixed as a media frenzy erupts around the trial in Jerusalem, the nation plunged into trauma and fascination by “the trial of the century”.
‘As the case uncovers dark corners of memory and the horrors of war, the Demjanjuk case becomes a race against time for the defendant and his alleged victims.’
A German court convicted Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk in 2011 pending appeal as an accessory to the murder of 27,000 Jews at the Sobibor death camp in occupied Poland.
He died in 2012 in a German nursing home aged 91 before his appeal could be heard.
‘Demjanjuk’s American dream was shattered when he was extradited to Israel to stand trial for crimes against humanity,’ a Netflix description reads
The Netflix synopsis adds that Israel was ‘transfixed as a media frenzy erupts around the trial in Jerusalem, the nation plunged into trauma and fascination by “the trial of the century”’
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also tweeted about a map featured in the documentary.
‘During the time which the “The Devil Next Door” series describes, Poland’s territory was occupied, and it was Nazi Germany who was responsible for the camps,’ the Monday tweet read. ‘The map shown in the series does not reflect the actual borders at that time.’
Morawiecki’s letter told the company CEO: ‘Not only is the map incorrect, but it deceives viewers into believing that Poland was responsible for establishing and maintaining these camps, and for committing the crimes therein.
‘There is no comment or any explanation whatsoever that these sites were German-operated.’
He added: ‘As my country did not even exist at that time as an independent state, and millions of Poles were murdered at these sites, this element of The Devil Next Door is nothing short of rewriting history.’
Morawiecki had said he believed the mistake was unintentional and that the company would swiftly correct it, either by modifying the map or providing further explanation to viewers.
Poland is very sensitive to suggestions that it might share any complicity in Nazi crimes committed on its territory.
The ruling party last year passed a law allowing courts to jail anybody who made such a suggestion, though it later watered down the legislation under U.S. pressure.
Poland was home to one of the world’s biggest Jewish communities before it was almost wiped out by the Nazis.
Many Poles still refuse to accept research showing that thousands of Poles participated in the Holocaust, in addition to the thousands who risked their lives to help the Jews.
A German court convicted Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk in 2011 pending appeal as an accessory to the murder of 27,000 Jews at the Sobibor death camp in occupied Poland
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