The story of John Demjanjuk is coming to Netflix in the form of “The Devil Next Door,” a five-part docu-series on the life of the Cleveland auto worker who was in 1988 tried and convicted in Israel of being Ivan the Terrible, an infamous Nazi guard who ran the gas chambers at the Treblinka concentration camp where nearly a million Jews died.

After evidence presented upon appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court cast doubt, the conviction was overturned in 1993 and he came back to Cleveland. In 2001, after new evidence that the Ukranian-born Red Army POW was a Nazi-trained death camp guard at the Sobibor concentration camp, his citizenship was revoked and he was charged again. Eight years later he stood trial after being charged in Germany, where he was convicted in 2011. He died before his appeal process was completed.

The series examines the trials, his professions of innocence, as well as Demjanjuk’s unassuming life in Cleveland before survivors IDed him as the notorious SS guard and what happened afterward.

It debuts on Nov. 4 on the streaming service.

View the trailer below, and maybe also read Esquire’s 2010 piece on Demjanjuk, which is, for our money, the best examination of the complicated history of the man and the cases.

Youtube video
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This article appears in Oct 23-29, 2019.

Vince Grzegorek has been with Scene since 2007 and editor-in-chief since 2012. He previously worked at Discount Drug Mart and Texas Roadhouse.

2 replies on “Here’s the Trailer for Netflix’s New Docu-Series on John Demjanjuk”

  2. Totally bullshit!. Simon Rosenthal or whatever his name was wrote a book in the 1940′ s named “Treblinka “. It was his personal account of him and six others working in the death camp in Treblinka and he wrote of the Ukrainian guards, with the worst being the one the nicknamed “Ivan the Terrible “. The book told the story of what occurred and then how he and his fellow workers, who also assisted in helping the guards guide people into the death chambers, planned an uprising to overthrow the guards and escape. Well during the uprising he and another person killed “Ivan the Terrible” themselves with a shovel. I read this book. Of course shortly after people started to go after John Demjanjuk, this book was nowhere to be found. And, in the early 80’s,Simon Rosenthal, under oath said that John Demjanjuk was Ivan. My question, Did Ivan rise from the dead? He was innocent. Those ID cards were forged. And, now years after his death you are again filming lies. THE Ukrainian community should boycott this falisy

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