Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has complained in a letter to Netflix boss Reed Hastings about bugs in the series "The devil lives next door" (original title "The Devil Next Door").
MILAN KAMMERMAYER / EPA-EFE / REX
Prime Minister Morawiecki: "Very harmful for Poland"
On Monday, the national-conservative politician himself founded this step on Facebook: Historical misrepresentations in such film productions are "perhaps unimportant errors for their creators, but for Poland they are very harmful, so our job is determined to respond". A Netflix spokesman said they were urgently checking the issue.
In the documentary series on Nazi concentration camps and the search for the war criminal John Demjanjuk was especially by historically incorrect maps give the impression that Poland was responsible for concentration camps and crimes committed therein, criticized Morawiecki in a letter that he published on his Facebook page.
Lukas Barth / AP
John Demjanjuk (in court in Munich in 2011)
In fact, Poland did not exist as a state during the Second World War, but suffered under German occupation and tyranny. Many Polish citizens were murdered for trying to rescue their Jewish neighbors.
Earlier, the Polish Foreign Ministry had already criticized via Twitter, the card used in the series show not historically correct limits.
@ Netflix, stay true to historical facts!
During the time which is "The Devil Next Door" series, Poland's territory was occupied, and it was Nazi Germany who was responsible for the camps. The map shown in the series does not reflect the actual borders at that time. pic.twitter.com/W5i8C9THo3
The Polish government is extremely careful that, for example, German concentration camps on today's Polish territory are not described as "Polish". This is expressly prohibited by a separate law. In particular, representatives of Israel have repeatedly criticized the law, which could also be misused to deny any complicity of Poles and Poles in Nazi crimes.
The five-part series "The devil lives next door," which was filmed by Israeli directors Yossi Bloch and Daniel Sivan and traces, among other things, the trials of John Demjanjuk in Israel and Germany, has so far been largely positively reviewed. So the "Wall Street Journal" could hardly imagine "more rewarding five hours of television".
Also the operators of the Auschwitz memorial appreciated on Twitter that "The devil lives next door" tell an important story. However, one could expect more accuracy from such a production.
@netflix "Devil next door" tells an important story. But not the shows on a map of Central Europe with post-war (not war-time occupation) borders but the locations of Chelmno and Majdanek camps are simply wrong. One could expect more accuracy in such a production. pic.twitter.com/iiJ9Mkmwud
- Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) November 10, 2019
