Hunters Creator Defends Human Chess Scene Following Criticism From Auschwitz Memorial

Hunterscreator David Weil is defending the show following criticism from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and State Museum. The Memorial expressed disappointment with the Amazon Prime drama for taking certain creative liberties with its depiction of the Holocaust and what happened in the World War II concentration camps, and specifically with Weil's decision to include a scene that featured a game of human chess.

Weil responded to the Auschwitz Memorial's criticism in a statement provided to Variety on Sunday evening. After recounting his personal history with Auschwitz and his experiences as a grandson of Holocaust survivors, Weil addressed the human chess game, explaining: "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."

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Hunters centers on a group of vigilantes in 1977 who track down Nazis hiding in the United States and make them pay for their crimes. The scene in question takes place in the series' first episode, as Al Pacino's Meyer Offerman tells Logan Lerman's Jonah Heidelbaum a story about Nazi guards using prisoners of the camp to stage a cruel human chess game. The scene is also paralleled in the show's opening credits sequence, which features their characters and others as chess pieces, fighting against uniformed SS officers on a chess board.

While the series is fictional and only loosely based on true events, the Auschwitz Memorial said that the chess game in Hunters is dangerous to the organization's objective of preserving the true history of this horrific moment in human history. On Sunday, the organization posted on its official Twitter account, "Auschwitz was full of horrible pain and suffering documented in the accounts of survivors. Inventing a fake game of human chess for Hunters is not only dangerous foolishness and caricature. It also welcomes future deniers. We honor the victims by preserving factual accuracy."

On Monday morning, the Auschwitz Memorial's Twitter account responded to a user defending the show by that saying Hunters is "probably doing more to raise Holocaust awareness" than any other film or TV series since Schindler's List. The Auschwitz Memorial replied, "Auschwitz was a real place where people suffered. It would be much better if the authors of the movie tried to raise awareness of a true event of the Holocausts by showing something closer to the truth rather than choosing to create a fake story that never happened in Auschwitz."

In a separate exchange, the organization wrote, "We believe accuracy should be preserved when you talk about the real historical place. 'Fictional' is a bad excuse. Respect accuracy and the memory of the victims."

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.

Hunters is currently available on Amazon Prime Video.