Nova massacre memorial comes to Southern California

AUGUST 22, 2024 5:00 AM ET
Jason DeRose



Creators of the memorial collected artifacts from the Nova massacre site in the days and weeks following the attack, including abandoned tents, blankets and lawn chairs.
Jason DeRose/NPR

CULVER CITY, Calif. — A single rubber flip flop lies on a blanket dusted with sand in a giant warehouse in Culver City, Calif. Nestled nearby, a cell phone displays a series of text messages between a dance party attendee and a loved one miles away.

Dozens of video monitors, interspersed among empty tents and lawn chairs, play graphic scenes of Hamas militants attacking the Nova Music Festival in Israel near the Gaza border, during the early morning hours of October seventh.

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Survivors and organizers of the Nova Festival created this exhibit and memorial — “October 7, 6:29am — The Moment the Music Stood Still” — to bear witness to the massacre and to ask others to do the same. The installation is in part a recreation of the festival grounds that originally opened in Tel Aviv late last year. It’s now on display in Southern California through early October.

Ilon Faktor, who helped create the exhibit, points to one of the large monitors showing men dressed in black riding motorbikes into crowds of dancers. “Some of the footage there is taken by Hamas themselves while attacking,” he says. “And some of it is by the kids hiding, calling home and trying to escape.”

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