Neal Robin (B.A. 2007) served as editorial producer for “Elusive Justice: The Search for Nazi War Criminals,” a documentary premiering Tuesday, November 15 (at 9PM on PBS; check for local listings) that chronicles the 65-year effort to identify, prosecute, and punish Nazi perpetrators of the Holocaust.

After the end of WWII, the international community failed to uphold its pledge to prosecute and punish suspected Nazi war criminals. Thousands of Nazi officials fled to safe havens around the world, assuming false identities and concealing their war records to evade exposure.  The documentary explores how and why this happened, as well as profiles the men and women who, in the face of apathy and violence, pursued Nazis on their own terms when official institutions failed to enforce its laws.  The film includes interviews with suspected war criminals and their defenders, government investigators and prosecutors, intelligence officers, so-called Nazi-hunters, and Holocaust survivors.

As editorial producer, Neal conducted on-camera interviews, coordinated story assignments (including overseas assignments), located archival footage, and researched trials and investigations of suspected Nazi perpetrators to incorporate into the film.

Neal says, “My background in history served as an indispensable background for me during the documentary production, and will continue to be invaluable in all my educational and professional endeavors.  I read historical accounts of groups of people who were abused and disenfranchised for bigoted reasons, and whose memory served as a basis on which future generations attempted to raise the moral and social consciousness to issues of injustice.  I drew on the lessons I learned in class by listening to firsthand accounts of those who bore witness to crimes as they unfolded, and then trying to understand the stories behind them.”