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The Holocaust Survivors Foundation criticized “Zero Zone” director Jonathan Glazer’s comments made Sunday night during the Oscars ceremony, calling them “morally indefensible” in an open letter obtained Monday by TheWrap. .
“You should be ashamed for using Auschwitz to criticize Israel,” the foundation’s president, David Schaecter, wrote in the letter, signed by all 18 members of the foundation’s American executive committee.
Schaecter, 94, who claimed he was the only one in his family of 105 to survive the Holocaust, wrote: “I watched with anguish on Sunday as I heard you use the platform of the Oscar ceremony to equate Hamas’s manic brutality against innocent Israelis with the difficult but necessary self-defense of Israel against the current barbarism.”
During his acceptance speech for Best International Film, Glazer condemned the ongoing violence between Israel and Palestine that began with the Hamas attacks of October 7 and continues five months later despite global calls for Israel to issue a ceasefire in Loop.
“Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It has shaped our entire past and present,” Glazer said in his speech. “Right now we are here as men who refute their Judaism and the Holocaust held hostage by an occupation that has brought so many innocent people into conflict. Whether it is the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?
Schaecter continued: “You made a movie about the Holocaust and you won an Oscar. And you are Jewish. Good for you. But it is shameful that you dare to speak on behalf of six million Jews, including one and a half million children, who were murdered solely because of their Jewish identity.”
“The Zone of Interest” follows Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Müller) as they live an idyllic life in a dream house next to the infamous concentration camp.
