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Righteous gentiles in the Holocaust were no ‘ordinary thing’
Admittedly, Holocaust movies are often problematic. So much of the material is familiar and repetitive. Many audiences have grown inured to the subject if not downright turned off, for whatever reasons. Documentary maker Nick Davis says he did not want to make another Holocaust film, at least not one that we had seen before. He has succeeded. Instead of focusing on the relentless atrocities and victims, his film, This Ordinary Thing shines a light on the often forgotten heroes of the era.
It tells the story of gentiles who helped save Jews across Europe during The Holocaust. Narrated by an all-star cast — including F. Murray Abraham, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons, Ellen Burstyn, Jeannie Berlin, Eric Bogosian, Lily Tomlin, and Stephen Fry — the film combines archival footage with the testimonies of more than 40 individuals who, at great personal risk to themselves and their families, worked to rescue Jews.
This was no collective endeavor. As told in this film, none of these people had histories as resistance fighters, although they may have become partisans later. They rose to the occasion, that’s all. Those they hid were desperate neighbors, friends and sometimes strangers who showed up at their doorsteps begging for help.
In some instances they sheltered Jews for years in tight unlit quarters without plumbing; elsewhere, they adopted Jewish children and passed them off as their own; in one situation, a housekeeper prostituted herself to appease and silence her employer who discovered she was hiding Jews in his home. In another, a housewife was hiding Jews underneath and between the cushions in her large, bulky sofa. And when Nazi soldiers stormed the house, eyeing the sofa, she challenged them to shoot it up, adding that when they found nothing, but succeeded in ruining her furniture, they would have to buy her new fabric and pay for reupholstering. The soldiers, who may or may not have believed her, left the home.
If caught, any one of these brave souls could have been shot on the spot or hung; some of them were. But by the end of the war, they had rescued thousands of Jewish strangers from almost certain death in the camps, ghettos or streets. Precise statistics are not known, but Yad Vasham estimates that the Jews saved number in the tens of thousands, and the museum acknowledges 28,000 saviors as “The Righteous Among the Nations.”
The 62-minute film, with haunting music by Tony-winner Adam Guettel, is understated and subtle. Set within a chronological structure, starting at the cusp of the Holocaust and continuing post liberation and beyond, these courageous figures recount matter-of-factly what they observed and experienced. Devoid of back stories, short of their names and countries of origin, they become, in the film, at once heroes and historical witnesses.
Most of our heroes are voice overs, nothing more. A few, however, were interviewed decades ago; some of these video testimonials are interwoven, as well as many black and white photos of the narrators.
Throughout the movie, the overarching questions remain unanswered. How do people like this come to exist? What makes it possible for them to step up to the plate? What, if anything, unites them?
Their motivations were all over the map. Some of the people who sheltered Jews were genuinely religious; others, less traditionally so, nevertheless held a kind of simple morality as axiomatic. One said “It’s natural: When people come to you hungry, you give them food.” Another notes, “How would you feel if, later, that person died? How could you survive?”
Many of those interviewed in the film said they were driven to act through the stunning outrage they felt in response to their fellow countrymen’s willful ignorance and, in more than a few cases, outright denial of the growing antisemitism. Hatred of Jews was pervasive and had always been endemic in their countries, which included Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Indeed, the majority of their gentile neighbors, some observed, couldn’t wait to be marching in lockstep with the Nazis, who offered them the perfect platform to voice their deep seated antisemitism.
But nothing could compete with the shocking scenes the gentile heroes personally witnessed that confirmed the necessity to do something, at whatever peril to themselves. The brutality was unprecedented; one witness described walking into a public square to see five bodies swinging from the gallows, including a gentile couple and the Jewish family they sheltered. Another recalled seeing a Nazi officer smashing a crying Jewish infant to the ground and then stomping on its head.
Some of the images, such as the grisly gallows scene, are projected on screen. But in most cases, the archival footage has nothing to do with the particulars that are being recounted at that moment, and in fact often border on the generic. Still, they effectively serve as potent backdrops. There are the marching Nazis and cheering crowds, Jewish owned stores with “Jude” scrawled across broken windows and abandoned Jewish homes, the owners’ possessions strewn all over the floor.
At the end of the war, most Jews and their gentile protectors went their separate ways, but not all. One Jewish man married the gentile woman who saved him; another Christian who rescued Jews reports that he converted to Judaism, including undergoing a circumcision at the age of 68. One recalls a conversation with his wife, marveling in retrospect at how they saved Jews during the war.
“I said, ‘We’d be crazy to risk our lives for those strange people.’ And my wife said, ‘Yeah. We’ll never do it again, will we?’ ‘No,’ I said, and she looked at me and we laughed. She said, ‘You know, just as well as I do, we would do the same thing over.’”
To show the timelessness of antisemitism, Davis incorporates chants from the antisemitic demonstration in Charlottesville in 2017. “Jews will not replace us.” But the snippet is unnecessary — in fact, it almost dilutes the impact of what has preceded it.
The references to current events trivialize the Holocaust and unwittingly undermine the actions of the gentile heroes. I also can’t help feeling that Davis was looking for a theme that was universal, like heroic individuals, from any era, who do the right thing despite the peril that is involved.”
While it’s tempting to look for universal resonance in the film — to attempt to answer the question, “What would I do?” — there is no application. This story and its heroes are very much of their time and place. The word “inspiring” does not cut it. I watched this one gob-smacked.
This Ordinary Thing is running at the Cinema Village.
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Trump Warns of More Strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island, Pressures Allies to Secure Oil Chokepoint
An LPG gas tanker at anchor as traffic is down in the Strait of Hormuz, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Shinas, Oman, March 11, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo
US President Donald Trump threatened more strikes on Iran’s main oil export hub Kharg Island and said he was not ready for a deal with Tehran to end the war which has shut off the vital Strait of Hormuz and caused chaos in global energy markets.
With the US-Israeli war on Iran in its third week, Trump said US strikes had “totally demolished” much of the island and warned of more, telling NBC News on Saturday, “We may hit it a few more times just for fun.”
The comments marked a sharp escalation from Trump, who had previously said the US was targeting only military sites on Kharg, and dealt a blow to diplomatic efforts to end a war that has spread across the Middle East and killed more than 2,000 people, most in Iran and Lebanon.
Trump called on countries that have been impacted by the choking off of oil supplies through the Strait of Hormuz to join efforts to reopen shipping lanes. The Financial Times reported that European Union foreign ministers would discuss widening of the EU’s regional Aspides naval mission.
Washington has brushed aside attempts by Middle Eastern allies to open talks, three sources told Reuters, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday they had fired more missiles at Israel and three US bases in the region.
Trump, who has made a series of varying demands, including a say in choosing Iran’s leader and an end to its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, told NBC News that Tehran appeared ready to make a deal to end the fighting but that “the terms aren’t good enough yet.”
In his interview with NBC, Trump raised the possibility that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei may have been killed, but Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Khamenei was in full health and managing the situation.
WAR, ENERGY CRISIS LOOK SET TO PERSIST
As missile and drone exchanges continued on Sunday and shipping remained blocked, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said he expected the war to end within “the next few weeks,” bringing a swift rebound in supplies and lower prices.
But with global air transport heavily disrupted and no clear end in sight, Iran’s ability to choke off traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas, has emerged with increasing urgency as a decisive threat to the global economy.
Although some Iranian vessels have continued to pass, the passage has been effectively closed for most of the world’s shipping since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28 at the start of an intensive bombing campaign that has hit thousands of targets across the country.
Khamenei, who succeeded as supreme leader after his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of the attacks, has said the Strait of Hormuz should remain closed.
The International Energy Agency said last week the closure of the narrow passage along Iran’s coast had triggered the largest disruption to global oil markets in history, and was expected to cut around 8% of global supplies in March.
Underlining the impact the war has had on energy infrastructure in the region, the global ship-refueling hub of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates was closed after barrages on Saturday but resumed oil-loading operations on Sunday, a Fujairah-based industry source said.
With crude oil prices above $100 a barrel and expected to rise further next week, the issue has hung over Trump’s Republican Party, which faces a major test at midterm elections in November.
Trump himself has dismissed worries about spiking gas prices for American consumers, saying they will fall back quickly. But he has called on China, France, Japan, South Korea, Britain and others to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz to ensure shipping can pass.
“The Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help – A LOT!” Trump wrote in a social media post on Saturday. “The U.S. will also coordinate with those Countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly, and well.”
The FT said EU foreign affairs ministers holding a regular meeting on Monday would discuss potentially widening the EU Aspides naval mission that protects shipping against Houthi attacks in the Red Sea to include the Strait of Hormuz.
France has been seeking to assemble a coalition to secure the strait once the security situation stabilizes, while Britain is discussing a range of options with allies to ensure the security of shipping, officials have said.
Araqchi told his French counterpart that countries must refrain from anything that could escalate the conflict. He also said Iran would respond to any attack on its energy facilities.
ISRAEL DENIES TALKS WITH LEBANON
Araqchi denied Iran was targeting civilian or residential areas in the Middle East and said it was ready to form a committee with its neighbors to investigate the responsibility for such strikes. Gulf countries have suffered damage to energy facilities and residential areas during the two-week war.
But as the standoff continued, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it had fired more missile and drone barrages at targets in Israel and at US military bases in the region, where Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted 10 attacks.
Israel said its jets hit more targets in western Iran, including headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards and Basij militia forces in the city of Hamadan.
A source briefed on Israel’s military strategy told Reuters that Israel had begun targeting roadblocks and bridges it believed Revolutionary Guards commanders were using. Iranian security forces detained dozens of people accused of sharing information with Israel, Iranian media reported.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar rejected claims that Israel had told the United States it was running low on interceptors and dismissed a report that it could soon hold direct talks with Lebanon, where it has resumed its campaign against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement.
In Iran, at least 15 people were killed when an airstrike hit a refrigerator and heater factory in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, the semi-official Fars news agency said on Saturday. The Revolutionary Guards promised further retaliation for workers killed in Iran’s industrial areas.
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IDF Says Brother of Michigan Synagogue Attacker Was Hezbollah Commander
FBI agents work on the site after the Michigan State Police reported an active shooting incident at the Temple Israel Synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, US, March 12, 2026. Photo: Rebecca Cook via Reuters Connect
i24 News – The IDF said the brother of Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, who carried out last week’s attack on a Michigan synagogue, was a Hezbollah commander who managed weapons operations and was killed in an Israeli airstrike last week. The IDF added that the Hezbollah unit Ghazali served in had launched hundreds of rockets toward Israel.
Ghazali, 41, rammed a vehicle into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, on March 12. He later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound during a gunfight with police, the FBI said. The agency is investigating the incident as a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.
The FBI reported that Ghazali had large quantities of commercial-grade fireworks and several jugs of flammable liquid in his truck, which ignited during the attack. No children or staff at the synagogue and its preschool were injured. A security guard sustained injuries and was expected to recover, while police officers were treated for smoke inhalation.
Before the IDF published the confirmation of the “elimination” of the attacker’s brother, Dearborn Heights Mayor Mo Baydoun said the suspect had suffered “devastating and personal losses overseas.”
The mayor also stressed that “this is not an excuse” for the attack, adding that his actions “do not reflect our values as a city.”
Temple Israel Rabbi Jen Lader described the scene as “sheer terror” and emphasized the necessity of full-time armed security. “American Judaism is such these days that every synagogue is a target. Every synagogue is aware that we need to take precautions to keep our people safe,” she said, adding that the temple had prepared for similar incidents.
The IDF’s statement links the Michigan attack to broader Hezbollah operations and highlights the ongoing threat the group poses to Israel and Jewish communities abroad.
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After attacks, Jewish security watchdogs warn of ‘most elevated and complex threat environment’ in recent history
(JTA) — A string of recent synagogue attacks across North America and Europe has left security officials sounding the alarm bells.
“We are in the midst of the most elevated and complex threat environment the Jewish community and this country has seen in modern history,” said Kerry Sleeper, chief of threat management and information sharing for the Secure Community Network, a Jewish security organization.
Sleeper’s comment came during an SCN webinar on Friday, held in response to the previous day’s attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, where an assailant rammed into the synagogue armed with rifles and smoke bombs.
Though the attack was successfully thwarted by existing security measures, Mitchell Silber, executive director of the Community Security Initiative, said in an interview that Jewish institutions may now need additional layers of protection.
“This might be a bit of a tipping point where we’ve gone to a new level, where really what’s required to secure a Jewish institution in the U.S. starts to look like almost a Europeanization of security,” Silber said.
That would include posting multiple armed guards outside entrances and requiring increased screening before entry, he said. Many European synagogues also require attendees to go through security screening at some distance from the building, rather than at their doors.
“Unfortunately that seems to be where we are right now — the Jewish community has to up its game in terms of the external security of its locations,” he said.
Currently, a shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security since Feb. 14 is halting the review of millions of dollars in security funding for nonprofits, constraining the ability of Jewish institutions and other vulnerable groups to upgrade their security infrastructure.
The Temple Israel attack came within two weeks of attacks in Austin, Texas, and at Old Dominion University in Virginia. Those other attacks were not on Jewish institutions, but Sleeper, a former FBI assistant director, said the “various motivations of the attackers appear to be affiliated with the war between the U.S., Israel and Iran.” He added that the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran, and President Donald Trump’s stated desire to facilitate a regime change, have “contributed to the extremely high threat environment.”
Meanwhile, things have escalated outside the United States. Three Toronto-area synagogues were hit with gunfire over the last couple of weeks, and a synagogue in Rotterdam was targeted by an arson attack early Friday morning, allegedly by a group that has also claimed credit for an explosion at a synagogue in Belgium.
The flurry of attacks has the entire Jewish world on edge going into Shabbat — and some watchdogs say things could soon get worse.
“It is not entirely shocking to those of us who’ve watched this space for a long time,” said Mike Jacobson, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who served in the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau. “I would think things would continue to ratchet up again, at least in the short term.”
He pointed to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ activation of sleeper cells — their agents lying in wait until called to action to commit an attack — across the West, as a danger to vulnerable targets, which includes Jewish communities.
Another source of danger, Jacobson said, comes from copycat attacks.
“There’s also this mix that makes it really hard to sort out in the initial stages, where you’ve got people, not only who may be directly tied to Iran, but people who are so-called ‘inspired’ by this,” Jacobson said. “Those are often really hard for law enforcement to get advance notice on.”
Not always does the threat come from direct orders from Iran, he said. “It’s often difficult to tell: Is this something that is directly tied to the organization, or is this something that is more by someone inspired [by the IRGC]?”
He added, “They are trying to inflict pain in as many directions as they can.”
As security organizations encourage increased caution and awareness of suspicious activity, they are also emphasizing that those measures shouldn’t come at the expense of gathering in communal Jewish spaces.
“We’re not going to let the terrorists take away our confidence or the ability to embrace our religion,” said Michael Masters, SCN’s national director, during the Zoom webinar.
Masters’ sentiment is also shared by congregational leaders like Rabbi Adam Roffman, of Congregation Shearith Israel in Dallas.
“Sure, security is something we think a lot about, and we’ve done our best to protect ourselves,” Roffman said. “And at the same time, the life of this community goes on.”
At Temple Israel, Shabbat services are being streamed from the nearby country club that served as a reunification center for families after the attack. The synagogue wrote on Facebook: “We’re so glad you’re joining us tonight as our community comes together to welcome this much needed Sabbath.”
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