Auschwitz Memorial Criticizes Amazon’s ‘Hunters’ For Historical Inaccuracies, Creator David Weil Responds – Updated

Dino-Ray Ramos
·6-min read

Click here to read the full article.

UPDATE: Hunters creator and executive producer David Weil has responded to the backlash in regards to the new Amazon series about a band of Nazi hunters in 1977. As Weil pointed out, the new series is inspired by true events, but the scrutiny was in regards to a scene that included a human chess game which the official Auschwitz Memorial referred to as “disrespectful and disrespectful”.

In a statement given to Deadline, Weil talked about his experience visiting Auschwitz and then addressed the human chess match saying that he included it in the series “To most powerfully counteract the revisionist narrative that whitewashes Nazi perpetration, by showcasing the most extreme – and representationally truthful – sadism and violence that the Nazis perpetrated against the Jews and other victims.”

More from Deadline

Read Weil’s full statement below:

Years ago I visited Auschwitz and I saw the gates my grandmother was forced to enter decades earlier and the barracks she was forced to live in as a prisoner. I saw vestiges of the nightmarish world she had survived. It was an experience that forever altered the course of my life. It was the moment consecrated in time and memory that I sought to make good on doing my part – however big or however small – to ensure the promise of “Never Again.” I believed then – as I do now – that I had a responsibility as the grandson of Holocaust survivors to keep their stories alive.

While Hunters is a dramatic narrative series, with largely fictional characters, it is inspired by true events. But it is not documentary. And it was never purported to be. In creating this series it was most important for me to consider what I believe to be the ultimate question and challenge of telling a story about the Holocaust: how do I do so without borrowing from a real person’s specific life or experience?

It was for this reason that I made the decision that all of the concentration camp prisoners (and survivors) in the series would be given tattoos above the number 202,499. 202,499 is the highest recorded number given to a prisoner at Auschwitz. I didn’t want one of our characters to have the number of a real victim or a real survivor, as I did not want to misrepresent a real person or borrow from a specific moment in an actual person’s life. That was the responsibility that weighed on me every night and every morning for years, while writing, producing, editing this show. It is the thing I go to sleep thinking about and the thing I wake up working to honor.

In speaking to the “chess match” scene specifically… this is a fictionalized event. Why did I feel this scene was important to script and place in series? To most powerfully counteract the revisionist narrative that whitewashes Nazi perpetration, by showcasing the most extreme – and representationally truthful – sadism and violence that the Nazis perpetrated against the Jews and other victims. And why did I feel the need to create a fictional event when there were so many real horrors that existed? After all, it is true that Nazis perpetrated widespread and extreme acts of sadism and torture – and even incidents of cruel “games” – against their victims. I simply did not want to depict those specific, real acts of trauma.

If the larger philosophical question is can we ever tell stories about the Holocaust that are not documentary, I believe we can and should. HUNTERS, like a myriad of acclaimed films on the subject, does not always adhere to literal truth in its pursuit of capturing the representational truth of the Holocaust. My decision to fictionalize was made in awareness of this debate, and this show takes the point of view that symbolic representations provide individuals access to an emotional and symbolic reality that allows us to better understand the experiences of the Shoah and provide it with meaning that can address our urgent present.

I am forever grateful to the Auschwitz Memorial for all of the important and vital work that they do, for keeping the memory of victims and survivors like my grandmother, Sara Weil, alive. I believe we are very much on the same side and working toward the same goals. And I hope we can continue a dialogue on how to achieve those goals.

PREVIOUS: Amazon Prime debuted Hunters this weekend and the official Auschwitz Memorial Twitter account has some opinions about the new series that follows Nazi hunters in 1977 — particularly one scene that involved a human chess game.

“Auschwitz was full of horrible pain & suffering documented in the accounts of survivors,” they tweeted. “Inventing a fake game of human chess for @huntersonprime is not only dangerous foolishness & caricature. It also welcomes future deniers. We honor the victims by preserving factual accuracy.”

Twitter users began to chime in agreeing with the Auschwitz Memorial about the series inspired by true events. One user asked if they offered consultation services when it comes to accuracies about Holocaust. The memorial said that they offer consultation, but not many filmmakers, writers, journalists and artists have used them as a resource.

Another user said that they agree with them “about the point” but then went on to say that a movie can “modify reality” and that Hunters will increase interest about Holocaust. The Auschwitz Memorial responded: “In other words, you say: ‘a movie can lie about reality as it is just a movie’. Here we absolutely disagree. This is disrespectful and dangerous.”

Created by David Weil (Moonfall) and executive produced by Jordan Peele, Hunters follows a diverse band of Nazi hunters living in 1977 New York City. Known as The Hunters, they have discovered that hundreds of high-ranking Nazi officials are living among us and conspiring to create a Fourth Reich in the U.S. The team set out on a bloody quest to bring the Nazis to justice and thwart their new genocidal plans. The series stars Logan Lerman, Al Pacino, Jerrika Hinton, Josh Radnor, Kate Mulvany, Tiffany Boone, Greg Austin, Louis Ozawa Changchien, Carol Kane, Saul Rubinek, Dylan Baker and Lena Olin.

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next

Latest stories