A 94-year-old Holocaust survivor has written an open letter to Steven Spielberg on behalf of many other survivors urging the director to voice his support for Israel and the return of the hostages taken by Hamas.
David Schaecter, head of the survivor-run Holocaust Survivors’ Foundation USA (HSF), wrote the letter in early November out of heartbreak that “since October 7, 2023, you have not spoken out and publicly taken a stand against terrorism, against Hamas and the millions who celebrate the shedding of Jewish blood.”
Schaecter wrote that he has admired the career of the Schindler’s List director and founder of the USC Shoah Foundation, a nonprofit organisation that records audio and visual testimonies with Holocaust and other genocide survivors. Spielberg’s historic passion for documenting the experiences of Holocaust survivors, not to mention his own Judaism, has made his silence on the conflict in Israel all the more disappointing, according to Schaecter.
“Wasn’t the entire purpose of recording 50,000 testimonies of our fellow survivors to make sure the world would never be able to deny, and must never forget, the Nazis’ systematic murder of six million Jews, including one and a half million children?” Schaecter wrote.
