Adaptation to Darkness

Overview

A biographical and psychological portrait of Dr. Edwin Katzen-Ellenbogen, a man of extraordinary abilities but very little conscience: a brilliant physician and a pioneer of psychiatric research, but also an elusive con artist who became the only Jew in history convicted of Nazi war crimes. The film traces his journey from a small town in Galicia to a career as a groundbreaking psychiatrist in the US; his exploits as a lover, hypnotist, swindler, a spy between the two world wars, and his actions in the Buchenwald concentration camp, which led him to stand trial as a Nazi war criminal. Katzen-Ellenbogen's story is an allegory of how individuals adapt to moral darkness - and the ways they find to thrive and blossom in the darkest of times.