When Adolf Eichmann was captured by the Mossad in Argentina, it made headlines all over the world. Eichmann was the biggest name to be captured, but Josef Mengele, Auschwitz’s infamous Dr. Death, was hiding in Argentina at the time, too, and a new movie imagines his life in hiding, where he continued his sadistic experiments on children.
The German Doctor, which had its U.S. premiere this weekend, was written and directed by Argentine writer Lucía Puenzo, who wanted to explore her own country’s complicity in hiding so many Nazis after World War II. The film centers on Lilith, a 12-year-old girl who meets Mengele (using an assumed name) when she and her family are driving through Patagonia. Lilith’s parents welcome the staid German doctor into their lives, and he comes to live at the hotel they own, even treating Lilith with growth hormones. Meanwhile, the Mossad is hot on his trail, and a mysterious group of people in a nearby hostel seem to be preparing for a mass escape.
The German Doctor is a thrilling, emotional movie, dramatizing the desperate search for Nazis, and the ways we allow evil to hide in plain sight. Let us know what you think.
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Watch a trailer of the film:
