Steven Spielberg comments on ‘unspeakable barbarity against Jews’ in Oct. 7 attacks

(CNN) — Steven Spielberg has made public remarks about the deadly October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.

The Oscar-winning director made the remarks in a feature published Friday by the USC Shoah Foundation, an organization he founded in 1994 to record and preserve interviews with Holocaust survivors and other witnesses.

“I never imagined I would see such unspeakable barbarity against Jews in my lifetime,” Spielberg said.

The organization has been collecting testimonies and accounts from survivors of the October 7 attacks as part of their Countering Antisemitism Through Testimony Collection initiative, a project that documents post-Holocaust antisemitism.

Spielberg said the initiative is “an effort that will ensure that the voices of survivors will act as a powerful tool to counter the dangerous rise of antisemitism and hate.”

“Both initiatives — recording interviews with survivors of the October 7 attacks and the ongoing collection of Holocaust testimony — seek to fulfill our promise to survivors: that their stories would be recorded and shared in the effort to preserve history and to work toward a world without antisemitism or hate of any kind,” he said.

Spielberg urged, “We must remain united and steadfast in these efforts.”

CNN has reached out to a representative for Spielberg for further comment.

The USC Shoah Foundation holds one of the largest and most comprehensive video collections of Holocaust survivor and witness testimony.

CNN first reported last month that the Shoah Foundation would be working to document the accounts of Oct. 7 survivors. The group plans to follow up with the individuals they interview to include their perspectives with the passage of time.

Spielberg directed the 1993 seven-time Oscar-winning film “Schindler’s List,” a historical drama following the true story of Oskar Schindler, who saved the lives of over 1,000 Jews during the Holocaust.

According to the USC Shoah Foundation’s website, it was Spielberg’s meetings with Holocaust survivors who visited the set of “Schindler’s List” that inspired him to establish the organization. It has also documented subsequent genocides in countries like Cambodia and Rwanda.

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