Please ignore the multiple one-line reviews that are attempting to downgrade the ratings of this wonderful documentary. These holocaust deniers are attempting to whitewash the fact that Treblinka and Sobibor were well within the borders of pre-war Poland. In fact, they are still in Post-war Poland close to the borders of Belarus and Ukraine. Will these deniers next claim that Oswiecim (Auschwitz) lies in some country other than Poland? Full marks to the makers of the documentary for historical accuracy. At no point in the movie was Polish collaboration mentioned, likely because the slaughter of Jews in Jadwabne is irrelevant to the story being told in The Devil Next Door.
That story is about the role of Ukrainian collaborators at Treblinka and Sobibor and one collaborator in particular, John Demjanjuk. The movie, through archival footage and present day interviews with the family, attorneys, judges and survivors, puts forward a balanced picture of the evidence for and against the accusation that John Demjanjuk was or was not the notorious gas chamber operator Ivan the Terrible. The Supreme Court in Israel ultimately came to the right conclusion, that the evidence was not conclusive enough to convict Demjanjuk of the particular crime he was accused of. The German court also came to the right conclusion, that John Demjanjuk was a Nazi collaborator during the war.
The evidence unfolds in such a dramatic and balanced manner that the viewer's head will spin and bounce between convict and acquit conclusions. That's the problem with real life - There are no simple answers to real problems. I recommend this movie to anyone who is under the illusion that there are.
That story is about the role of Ukrainian collaborators at Treblinka and Sobibor and one collaborator in particular, John Demjanjuk. The movie, through archival footage and present day interviews with the family, attorneys, judges and survivors, puts forward a balanced picture of the evidence for and against the accusation that John Demjanjuk was or was not the notorious gas chamber operator Ivan the Terrible. The Supreme Court in Israel ultimately came to the right conclusion, that the evidence was not conclusive enough to convict Demjanjuk of the particular crime he was accused of. The German court also came to the right conclusion, that John Demjanjuk was a Nazi collaborator during the war.
The evidence unfolds in such a dramatic and balanced manner that the viewer's head will spin and bounce between convict and acquit conclusions. That's the problem with real life - There are no simple answers to real problems. I recommend this movie to anyone who is under the illusion that there are.