This is a LinkedIn post by Judith Smit about Steve Witkoff’s recent visit to the Gaza aid death trap. comparing it to a 1944 Nazi film about the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

In 1944, deep into the Second World War, the Nazi regime produced a film in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The title was Theresienstadt: A Documentary from the Jewish Settlement Area. It was presented as evidence of humane treatment, of a self-governing Jewish town where people lived in peace. There were cafés, music performances, lectures, sports, families living normal lives. The subtitle of the project was “The Führer gives the Jews a city.” But it was all a lie…

In the weeks before the film was shot, the Nazis forced thousands of prisoners to clean the camp, decorate streets, and create the illusion of normalcy. Elderly Jews were deported to Auschwitz to reduce visible overcrowding and make space for “set design.” Skilled artists, musicians, teachers, and children were ordered to participate in staged scenes for the film. The Nazis selected people based on their appearance and ability to speak convincingly on camera. They were not acting voluntarily. They were prisoners who had no choice.

The Red Cross visited during this carefully staged moment. The camp was cleaned, rehearsed, and manipulated for the visit. The delegation saw smiling people in well-dressed streets and reported that conditions were acceptable. Shortly after their departure, most of those who appeared in the film, including the director Kurt Gerron himself, were deported to Auschwitz and murdered in the gas chambers.

The film served one purpose: to manipulate international opinion, to buy time, and to hide the scale of the genocide. It was psychological warfare. A cinema production built on coercion, fear, and death.

Zionists today have learned this lesson very well.

The world is watching staged distributions of aid in Gaza, filmed carefully for Western eyes. Delegations are shown clean queues and grateful recipients. Smiling children are brought forward to wave. But outside the camera frame, hunger is used as a weapon. Once the convoy leaves, the scenery collapses. Every day, without fail, people are randomly executed at these same distribution sites. No reason, no warning, no logic. Just raw, unfiltered sadism.

The tragedy is that the Jewish past, filled with real persecution, real ghettos, real extermination, is now being used not to prevent suffering, but to reproduce it. The heirs of trauma have become its performers. The cruelty is not in forgetting history, but in learning from it the wrong lessons.

It was directed by Jewish prisoner Kurt Gerron, an experienced director and actor. Shooting took eleven days, starting September 1, 1944. After the film was completed, most of the cast and the director were deported to Auschwitz. Gerron was murdered by gas chamber on October 28, 1944. The film was intended to show how well the Jews were living under the purportedly benevolent protection of the Third Reich. Often called “The Führer Gives a Village to the Jews,” the correct name of the film is “Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem juedischen Siedlungsgebiet “(“Terezin: A Documentary Film of the Jewish Resettlement”). As the film was not completed until near the end of the war, it was never distributed as intended, although a few screenings were held. Most of the film was destroyed, but some footage has survived.