The people of Gaza have nothing left: just night and fog —and a lot of blood. The perpetrators of this bloodshed are the descendants of those who themselves suffered tremendously at the hands of the Nazis in the 1930s and ’40s.

There are hundreds of movies that have depicted the Holocaust and which keep reminding the world that Nazis were monsters who exterminated Jews in the millions. Night and Fog is a documentary by French director Alain Resnais, made in 1955 to commemorate the fifth [10th?] liberation anniversary of Hitler’s concentration camps.

It is an award-winning short film using actual black and white footage shot inside these camps, as well as colour scenes of the death camps shot 10 years after the carnage ended. It is a journey of the horror that the victims had to go through.

The title is from the ‘Night and Fog’ decree that Hitler issued in December 1941, providing for the elimination of “persons endangering Germany’s security.” These individuals would vanish into the “night and fog” of Germany’s concentration and death camp system.

Text from a 1955 French documentary about the suffering of the Jewish people during the Holocaust rings eerily true for Palestinians in Gaza today

The 30-minute documentary features text spanning not more than 2,000 words. This text by Jean Cayrol, with a slight change, can also reflect the suffering of the Palestinians living their hell in Gaza right now. Read the following text with some edits (in italics) and see how similar the situation is in Gaza today.

“A peaceful landscape. An ordinary field with crows flying over it. An ordinary road…an ordinary village…a steeple and a fairground. This is the way to a concentration camp (Gaza). Gaza, Khan Yunis, Rafah, are names like any others on the map and guide books. The blood has dried…the tongue is silent, only the

camera goes round. Weeds have grown where the prisoners (Palestinians) used to walk… No footsteps are heard, except our own (Israeli forces). 1933 (2023). The machine gets underway. The nation (Israel) must sing in unison. No wrong note. No quarrels…work. The concentration camp is built like a grand hotel.

“You need contractors (American), estimates (from Europe), and competitive bids (perhaps from India). And no doubt friends in high places (Arabs? No?). Any style will do. The Swiss style. The garage style. A Japanese model. No style at all. The leisurely architects (strategists) planned the gates (protective walls), which no one will enter more than once... People go on living their everyday lives... The day comes when their blocks are rounded up. All they have to do is arrive. Rounded up in Warsaw (Gaza). Deported from Prague (Khan Yunis), Brussels (Rafah)... Interned... Arrested...........

© Dawn (Magazines)