Elusive justice

Streaming video - 2014

At the end of WWII the Allies declared the Nazi party a criminal organization, and pledged to prosecute and punish the architects and triggermen of genocide. It was an ambitious pledge: several hundred thousand Gestapo, SS, and Wehrmacht forces had engaged in war crimes and atrocities against civilians. But only a few thousand Nazi criminals and collaborators were convicted at the Nuremberg trials. This paled with the legions who evaded prosecution by concealing their war records, assuming false identities, fleeing Europe, or serving Allied governments as spies or scientists. In the absence of an international manhunt and centralized prosecution, the task of bringing Nazi criminals to justice was undertaken by a handful of individuals-actin...g without official status or government support. These so-called Nazi hunters collectively identified and brought to justice thousands of Nazi criminals. In the process, the Nazi hunters gave a measure of dignity to the dead and reminded the international community that enemies of humanity must be punished--if humanity is to survive. Narrated by Candice Bergen, this is an unprecedented examination of the six-decade global hunt for the 20th century's greatest criminals. Featuring intimate portraits of the Nazi hunters, the film also examines the nations and institutions that helped bring war criminals to justice-or, in too many cases, helped them to escape. more