Footage of the October 7 Hamas terror attack and massacre is being shown in Hollywood and New York this week

As skepticism about the brutality of Hamas terrorists’ attacks on Jews in Israel first emerged, the Israeli military collected 45 minutes of gruesome footage – much of it filmed by the perpetrators – of murders, beheadings, rapes and other atrocities against Jewish adults. and children. The footage was initially shown to world leaders, ambassadors and journalists covering the attack and the Israeli Defense Forces’ subsequent response, and will be shown at screenings in Hollywood and New York this week.

A number of Jewish people in Hollywood spoke to me to find out if I am among those who question whether they should expose themselves to images presented without comment and whose only sounds come from terrorists committing the atrocities and Victims who believed something. which could never happen again. At the moment there are only this week’s shows – Deadline have agreed not to disclose the day and location for security reasons, but it won’t be difficult to get a ticket for those who need one – but I will don’t be surprised if further shows follow. The film is titled “Bearing Witness”, a common expression for the Holocaust. Organizers of the show, which worked with the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee to put it together, hope it will dispel skepticism about the events of October 7, in which 1,400 people died and 240 hostages were taken. clear the way. I will remember it. The attack is the reason for the ground war currently being waged in Gaza, resulting in death and suffering.

I spoke with Guy Nattiv, the Oscar-winning Israeli filmmaker, whose film Gouda cheese reports on Golda Meir’s efforts to save Israel from destruction during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and her films skin And Stranger addressed anti-Semitism and hatred in other forms. He will be the public face of these exhibitions. I asked him why you actively offer political dignitaries, entertainment executives and local officials images that you cannot hide. He said it comes full circle about the appreciation his grandfather, Holocaust survivor Ruben Monowitz, instilled in him about what happens when people are allowed to shrug their shoulders and marginalize barbaric violence or to reject

“I go back to the Holocaust, to my grandfather,” Nattiv said. “He was sent to Auschwitz with his family. And when he was sixty, the only survivor of this terrible Holocaust – Ruben escaped but was sent to a forced labor camp but was spared – he brought the grandchildren back to Poland at sixty. He took us all with him. And as we stood there in Auschwitz, he said to me: Look, I hate the Germans and the Nazis because of what they did to me. But I hate the Poles even more because they didn’t say anything. They saw me and my family, the atrocities, and they said nothing. They waved at us as we were loaded onto these trucks. And the world said nothing when these atrocities took place in Europe. And he said, “You as a filmmaker, I’m telling you, now you as a filmmaker never have to use your voice again to bring the atrocities back to people and show what happened.” October 7 took me back to the Holocaust, how it happened: children, babies, women, raped, burned, alive, beheaded. And people don’t believe us. Even now it’s the same scenario: it didn’t happen. I have a Palestinian friend, a good guy, who read online that people at the rave party just walked out and weren’t killed. There were many lies. I was so furious.

“To show the world this raw footage … whether it’s LA, New York or Japan, people need to see what happened. It is a holocaust. This is not just one incident. My grandfather gave me this kind of mitzvah…I don’t know a good word for it, but he instructed me to bring the truth to the world. And that was my cinema with the short film skinand the function Gouda cheese. I make a cinema that tells true stories about the world we live in. Therefore, this exhibition is not only intended for Jews. This show is aimed at everyone in the industry. And it goes from filmmaker to filmmaker, storyteller to storyteller.”

Nattiv said his grandfather had a family of 16: sisters, brothers and mothers. “Everyone died. And I have two sides of the family. So I have the Romanian side and he is the Polish side. So they all perished. And my grandparents were the only survivors.

“When I email a filmmaker, I write as a filmmaker, as someone who brings truth to the world,” he continued. “That’s my goal here. To show where it all began. The atrocities, the mini-holocaust that happened there, means that we as a nation, we as a world cannot stand still and just move on. That doesn’t mean I’m not pro-Palestinian. I am for a two-state solution. I have Palestinian friends. I’m a left-wing filmmaker, but it’s not a question of left or right. It’s just something the whole world needs to see. So that’s my mission.”

I ask Nattiv about the inevitable outrage that reflects what many post on social media, lamenting images of victims suffering from the ground war in Gaza aimed at rooting out Hamas and freeing hostages.

“I don’t care what happens to other people,” he said. “I am saddened by all those who lose their lives in this war. It’s terrible. It must be seen, everything must be seen and this review does not disqualify the misery of others.”

The images, he said, were collected by the IDF and approved by the families of the victims depicted in them. It is an eerie parallel to images first seen around the world after Germany’s defeat in World War II.

“After the Holocaust, there were a number of unedited images that were shown to the world,” he said. It wasn’t actually a documentary, but raw footage from after 1945, all the footage that the Americans made, or the found footage of the Germans. They put it together and showed it to the world. This is exactly what we do. This is what the IDF did. These are the same photos they showed the government.

“There are two types of videos; One is of the helmets of Hamas terrorists found when they were killed by IDF troops. Of these are CCTV, like television at home, video cameras of the houses that recorded everything that happened in the house and outside the house, and rescuers who came to the massacre, after the massacre, when they took their videos. So everything is documented by real cameras.”

There’s a cruel irony here, the idea that the hot ticket in town might be a movie no one wants to see. I suggested that it would give those who see it the same feeling you get when you visit the World Trade Center Memorial, Pearl Harbor, a Holocaust museum or camp. You don’t come here for fun, but somehow it seems important that you go there and remember it.

“Look, can I tell you something else? “What you mean is the footage that people told me, don’t worry, it will never happen again,” Nattiv told me. “As I continued to work Gouda cheese, I met all the commanders of this debacle because it was a failure. And every commander I spoke to said, Yes, it happened when you were born, in 1970. It will never happen again. We are much smarter and learn from it. Guess what? It happened again. When they told us about the Holocaust, they said that they would never burn Jews again. Guess? It happened again. And the world doesn’t believe us. This is the same as coming full circle between 1939 and 1945. It’s crazy. So it’s not just about a terrorist attack. It is a holocaust. And that is why for me, as a third generation Holocaust survivor and as a filmmaker living as an American in the United States, it is my duty to bring it to the world. I’m just devastated.”

“It is important for an audience beyond traditional journalists and elected officials to see and witness the horrific atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7,” said Lt.Col. IDF spokesman Amnon Shefler said. “We are in an existential battle for the truth. Everyone must do their part to spread the truth and counter the denial and distortions that we unfortunately already see. We must face evil and have the moral clarity to unite against terror.”