--- title: Steven Spielberg: Putting an Actual Face on Genocide description: The 'Schindler’s List' director and founder of the USC Shoah Foundation explains why we must confront the origins of hate with new focus. canonical: https://time.com/4152057/steven-spielberg-genocide-essay/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-16T19:37:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:41:45.654Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Steven Spielberg: The Power of Putting an Actual Face on Genocide og:description: We must confront the origins of hate with new focus and new tools og:url: https://time.com/4152057/steven-spielberg-genocide-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5545d95c3e8e02c1/698875b6196cf435160397fd/steven-spielberg-bridges-of-spies-premiere.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2001 og:image:height: 1126 og:image:alt: Steven Spielberg at the "Bridge of Spies - Der Unterhaendler" World Premiere in Berlin on Nov. 13, 2015. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Steven Spielberg: The Power of Putting an Actual Face on Genocide twitter:description: We must confront the origins of hate with new focus and new tools twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5545d95c3e8e02c1/698875b6196cf435160397fd/steven-spielberg-bridges-of-spies-premiere.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Steven Spielberg: The Power of Putting an Actual Face on Genocide > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=0c77ce44-357d-4fe1-acfc-c8508071c420&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Witnesses Finally Speak [Watch (HLS stream): Witnesses Finally Speak](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/9DqM1Z6i.m3u8) (3:11)  _Published 2008-01-23. A priest's extraordinary four-year quest to document mass executions has shattered decades of secrecy and denial about the slaughter of Jews_ by [Steven Spielberg / The Hollywood Reporter](https://time.com/author/the-hollywood-reporter/) ## Steven Spielberg / The Hollywood Reporter Dec 16, 2015 7:37 PM UTC  Steven Spielberg at the "Bridge of Spies - Der Unterhaendler" World Premiere in Berlin on Nov. 13, 2015. Steven Spielberg at the "Bridge of Spies - Der Unterhaendler" World Premiere in Berlin on Nov. 13, 2015. Franziska Krug&—Getty Images by [Steven Spielberg / The Hollywood Reporter](https://time.com/author/the-hollywood-reporter/) ## Steven Spielberg / The Hollywood Reporter Dec 16, 2015 7:37 PM UTC In April, our team at USC Shoah Foundation sat down to photograph five survivors of the Holocaust, the Rwandan, Armenian, Cambodian and Guatemalan genocides, and the common idiom, “A picture’s worth a thousand words,” took on a whole new meaning for me. In today’s world, the violence behind genocide is not given the airtime, the space in some publications or its victims the consideration of our collective conscience. It’s thrust into the spotlight with a short-lived moral obligation and then disappears as abruptly as it was brought to our attention. Defined primarily by its statistics instead of its impact on each victim, genocide has become an out-of-sight, out-of-mind problem, increasingly acknowledged with apathy in the face of atrocity. At USC Shoah Foundation, we are tackling that apathy, by individualizing these crimes against humanity, by putting an actual face — many faces, in fact — on genocide. As long as we struggle to understand and confront the origins of hate, we will continue to suffer the casualties of it. By putting these faces out there, by making testimony available around the world, we are hoping to dissect that hatred — to figure out why, under the surface of a supposed common humanity, we are ignoring the everyday subtle moments of intolerance that can lead to genocide.  Clockwise from left: Genocide survivors Umugiraneza, Gabbai, Pol-Lim, Garrido and Salibian, who died in August at 101. David Strick—The Hollywood Reporter With global communication more efficient than ever, we are an as-it-happens eyewitness generation, and at USC Shoah Foundation, we are now an iWitness generation that can effectively challenge that bystander behavior. We are using the archive as a call to action — employing educational resources and technology to connect individuals to the past, to help them draw connections to the present and to inspire them to affect change in their communities. That brings me back to the remarkable photo, above, taken this year by David Strick of Edith Umugiraneza, Dario Gabbai, Yevnigue Salibian, Sara Pol-Lim and Aracely Garrido. It is a powerful reminder that genocide is a malignant problem persisting in countries all over the world. Survivors of genocide are individuals with shared stories of humanity, imploring all of us to abandon our indifference. They are worth listening to. Worth facing. Worth a thousand words and more. _This_ [_article_](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/holocaust-survivors/the-legacy-of-schindlers-list/) _originally appeared on_ [_The Hollywood Reporter_](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com) _More from The Hollywood Reporter:_ * [The Roman Polanski Interview (Podcast)](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/holocaust-survivors/roman-polanksi/) * [Hollywood’s Last Survivors: Why These Stories Matter Now](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/holocaust-survivors/) * [Dr. Ruth Westheimer: A German Survivor Who Became America’s Foremost Sex Therapist](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/holocaust-survivors/dr%5Fruth%5Fwestheimer/) ## Transcript >> This is Vivienne Walt reporting. In late December, TIME Magazine traveled through the remote parts of Ukraine on an extraordinary mission with the French Catholic priest called Patrick Desbois. He has spent four years tracking down the last eyewitnesses to the holocaust in this country where more than 1 million Jews were shot dead at pointblank range and thousands of massacres in just 3 years between 1941 and 1944. Olka Kushta was just 14 when she and her friends witnessed about 5, 000 Jews in her town of Reva- Ruska being shot dead, just a short walk from her home. These witnesses have never spoken before. They're breaking 6 decades of silence to reveal what they've seen and to lead Father Desbois to thousands of mass graves before the crucial knowledge is lost forever. >> It's the first time I meet somebody who saw really the execution, was a witness. There were 10 children, boys and girls, from the village and they saw the killing from beginning to end. So, she remembers where was the officer, where was the killer, where was the Jews; and she went to see the graves of course. They did not build any camp. They didn't put women prison. They only killed them anywhere in the landscape and they took advantage of this huge country, the nature, to try to hide the corpse. It was really an assassination. The job, I would say, of killers and also anybody was killing the Jews and they're [ unk ] and police and SS, any group, any gender [ unk ] or so, Ukrainian police, anybody watching the police or in SS was in the same group that kills the Jews anywhere. >> On New Year's Day, we follow another trail through bleak freezing landscape near the border of Belarus. This is a village where 1, 500 Jews were shot dead and hastily buried. And since then, no one has been back to really hear from witnesses what they saw. >> So, we're in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of kilometers from the big city. I'm sure too that's a Nazi who came here as a young German who came here, but never thought somebody would come back 60 years after. So, it's why they didn't kill the witnesses. >> Do you think people will be surprised when we turn up? >> No, I'm sure they are waiting our coming. >> Why do you think that? >> Since I work, they always say only one question. Why do you come so late? >> This man is 79. As a boy, he climbed these trees to watch thousands of Jews being shot. The killings went on for six months. And now, about 90, 000 people are like buried in these woods. >> Yes, we'd have to teach the new generation, but the first thing is to run because we have no more time. Time is running against us. We have maximum 5 years. 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