The Hunters creator defends fictionalized Auschwitz stories

Auschwitz Memorial has called The Hunters out for crafted horrific stories when there are so many real ones. However, the creator defends his decision.

With so many real stories that come from Auschwitz and other concentration camps, it’s hard to imagine the need to create fictionalized ones. However, that’s exactly what The Hunters has done, and creator David Weil defends his decisions for doing that.

Shortly after the series was released on Amazon Prime Video, Auschwitz tweeted in disappointment about the human chess game scene. It was a story entirely made up for the series. Why do that when there are so many real stories to tell? Auschwitz claims that it will lead to more people disbelieving the horrors that happened in the concentration camps, but Weil defends his actions.

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After all, the stories that are known—the stories out there—have been told by real people. There are family members that may have heard the stories. Seeing those stories depicted on screen could be hurtful, especially for the sake of telling a story about Nazi hunters in the 1970s.

Weil didn’t want connections to real people, according to Deadline. You’ll notice that all the numbers are above 202,499, the highest number recorded. This, again, was to avoid showing a real person on the screen. It wasn’t to hide the horror but to be respectful about the stories that are out there; the real lives people had to face.

It’s not like Weil is even trying to pretend the concentration camps didn’t happen. His grandmother was a Holocaust survivor. This is a show that is extremely personal to him, so he’ll understand what it could be like to see a story you heard a loved one tell end up being depicted on the screen.

At the same time, he didn’t want to misrepresent a story that was real. It would have been an injustice to that person and their family.

It’s not like the Nazis didn’t do similar things that we’ve seen in The Hunters. And there are some stories that may turn out to be true. We just don’t know everything that happened in the camps. We know the chess game didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean it was a bad thing showing it for the reasons Weil gave.

The Hunters is available to stream for free with your Amazon Prime membership.