Netflix responds to Polish critique of Treblinka doc
The Netflix media-services provider on Thursday replied to Poland's recent criticism of its documentary series about a notorious guard at the Nazi-German Treblinka death camp.
On Sunday, Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed criticism of the series, titled The Devil Next Door, claiming that it presented untrue information about Poland's World War Two history. On Monday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that he had written a letter in the matter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings asking him to correct the mistakes in the network's documentary.
According to the ministry the documentary, which focuses on sadistic Treblinka guard John Demjanjuk, presents untrue information about Poland, among others by wrongly marking German-occupied Poland's borders and non-reference to the nationality of the Nazis who ran Treblinka and other death camps located on Polish territory. This, according to the ministry, could imply Poland's complicity in the war crimes that are attributable to Nazi Germany.
In its Thursday reply to the Polish side's complaints, Netflix defended the series' authors and gave its assurance that the series had been well researched. Netfilx also said that in future maps presented in the series will be supplemented by text clarifying that World War Two death camps in Poland were built and run by the Germans, who at that time were occupying the country.
"We stand by the filmakers of The Devil Next Door, their research and their work. In order to provide more information to our members about the important issues raised in this documentary and to avoid any misunderstanding, in the coming days we will be adding text to some of the maps featured in the series. 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 wrote.
Nazi Germany launched the construction of the Treblinka concentration camp, located in today's east-central Poland, on June 1, 1942, as part of its 'Operation Reinhardt' plan to exterminate European Jews. It is estimated that nearly 900,000 Europeans of Jewish descent were murdered there. The vast majority, about 760,000, were Polish citizens.
Treblinka was one of the main extermination sites for European Jews, the death count coming second only to the main Holocaust site Auschwitz. (PAP)
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