Netflix’s ‘The Devil Next Door’ Review

If you Google “John Demjanjuk” and read the two sentence biography that appears in the upper right-hand corner, you’ll glean the narrative peaks and valleys that guide Netflix’s latest true crime docu-series, The Devil Next Door: before becoming the “retired autoworker” who immigrated from Ukraine to the U.S., John Demjanjuk was a guard at a Nazi death camp. 

The Devil Next Door follows Demjanjuk’s case from start to resonant finish. The Cleveland father of three and was put on trial in the 1970s, 1980s, and 2000s to determine his identity. In particular, the investigations aimed to confirm that John Demjanjuk, nee Ivan, was Ivan the Terrible (actually named Ivan Marchenko), a Nazi guard who slaughtered countless Jewish prisoners at Treblinka, an extermination camp outside Warsaw, Poland. 

The docu-series is full of twists and turns, and even if you’re familiar with the trial proceedings and verdicts that determined Demjanjuk’s true identity, The Devil Next Door is a comprehensive, empathetic retelling. In addition to telling a story with such gravity, the series is fascinating and thought-provoking. 

For context, in 1988, an Israeli court decided that Demjanjuk was, in fact, Ivan Marchenko, indicted Demjanjuk with all the crimes Marchenko had committed, and sentenced Demjanjuk to death. In 1993, that same court overturned its previous decision because newly discovered evidence explained Demjanjuk was not Ivan Marchenko. 

Notably, the aforementioned 1993 trial confirmed that John Demjanjuk served as a Nazi guard at Sobibor extermination camp in the 1940s — and it’s Demjanjuk’s lingering, proven culpability that makes The Devil Next Door’s final batch of episodes particularly compelling.

If the convictions, appeals, and overrulings of Demjanjuk’s case still leave you confused, The Devil Next Door offers a practical, comprehensive explanation. The docu-series, which was directed and produced by Daniel Sivan and Yossi Bloch, proves authoritative with commentary and perspectives from true-crime narrative staples like reporters, experts, and professors, and primary accounts from both Demjanjuk’s defense attorneys and the Israeli prosecutors and judges involved in the 1988 and 1993 trials.

The series’s cast of eccentric commentators also keeps viewers hooked. Demjanjuk’s defense attorneys, Mark O’Connor of the U.S. and Sheftel Yoram of Israel, speak with such conviction about the case — all while their accounts are underscored by the widespread disbelief that surrounded their integrity and motivations for representing Demjanjuk. 

Additionally, Ed Nishnic, Demjanjuk’s son-in-law shares why he pursued proving his father-in-law’s innocence through a media campaign even after Demjanjuk’s own children had abandoned hope in 1989. On the flip side, former director of the Office of Special Investigations Eli Rosenbaum acts as an unequivocal voice of reason and morality.

The Devil Next Door does right by audiences in masterfully contextualizing and reframing Demjanjuk’s 1988 and 1993 trials. As explained in the series, both proceedings were disputes over Demjanjuk’s identity and the credibility of damning evidence, not disputes over whether the crimes Ivan the Terrible committed were permissible or not. 

The Devil Next Door is dexterous as it proceeds with caution and empathy. 

Such a distinction might seem obvious to the outside observer, but after eleven Holocaust survivors testified that Demjanjuk was Ivan the Terrible during the 1988 trial, the proceedings took on a new significance: Juxtaposed with clear evidence, Israeli judges were forced to, in effect, overturn the words and emotional accounts of survivors. 

The Devil Next Door is dexterous as it proceeds with caution and empathy when examining the essential tension that surrounded clearing Demjanjuk’s name and respecting the brave survivors that aided in his due process. 

The gravity of Demjanjuk’s case inherently contributes to the docu-series’s power, but The Devil Next Door shines its brightest when it reminds audiences that the outcome of the trials and credibility of evidence were the least important facets of Demjanjuk’s proceedings. 

Throughout each development, creators Sivan and Block bravely continue to elaborate on the ethical dilemmas such a story presents. They relentlessly explore the harrowing question of what responsibility humanity has in prosecuting those involved with the Nazi regime, and the vital symbolism in doing so. Furthermore, The Devil Next Door appeals to audiences in making its true-crime narrative personal by specifically asking what responsibility U.S. forces bear if the crimes in question didn’t occur on American soil or directly harm American lives.

Crucially, Sivan and Block’s deep dive into Demjanjuk’s story in 2019 is a dutiful reminder that we must never forget the Holocaust, and should engage with docu-series like The Devil Next Door to keep the collective memory of such atrocities alive.

The Devil Next Door is now streaming on Netflix.