The Holocaust Survivors’ Foundation USA has attacked
The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer for what it describes as his “morally indefensible” Oscar acceptance speech on Sunday.
In an open letter published on the organisation’s website, the foundation’s chairman David Schaecter, wrote: “You made a Holocaust movie and won an Oscar. And you are Jewish. Good for you. But it is disgraceful for you to presume to speak for the six million Jews, including one and a half million children, who were murdered solely because of their Jewish identity.”
Schaecter added: “You should be ashamed of yourself for using Auschwitz to criticise Israel. If the creation, existence, and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish state equates to ‘occupation’ in your mind, then you obviously learned nothing from your movie.”
Glazer, along with film producer James Wilson, won the best international film Academy Award for The Zone of Interest, about the daily life of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig.
In his speech, Glazer said that he and Wilson “stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack in Gaza.”