‘We remain silent without being threatened.’

In ‘Resistance Now. Letter to My Friends,’ Milo Rau discusses the role of cultural institutions in light of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The letter appears in over ten European countries, including countries as diverse as France, Czechia, Portugal, Italy, Serbia, and Romania. Despite all efforts, it was not possible to publish the text in a German-speaking country. Milo Rau talks about the content of the letter, the disturbing silence of the perpetrator nations of the Holocaust on the war in Gaza, and the role of cultural institutions in the following interview with the magazine ‘Profil’ on 4 October 2025.

Italy has been on general strike since a multinational Gaza aid flotilla was captured by the Israelis.

Milo Rau: Yes, and it shows that Giorgia Meloni is an opportunist; under pressure, she is currently turning away from her Netanyahu-friendly course. Before the right-wing government came to power, Italy had a very different, much less consistent policy towards Israel than Austria or Germany. Meloni then swung hard to the right, towards Netanyahu. Now she is swinging back.

In your letter, which is currently being published in over 10 European countries, you call for resistance from the cultural scene. What form should this resistance take in concrete terms? Is it enough for the cultural scene to condemn Israel?

MR: First of all, I am concerned with the Israeli government and the Israeli military. In this regard, I stand alongside liberal Israeli civil society, which condemns the actions of its military in the same way. Major Israeli daily newspapers are talking about ‘genocide’. And, of course, it depends on where you work. I myself waited a long time until it was repeatedly and unequivocally stated: this is genocide. All research commissions and the UN have proven this dozens of times, and now we really only have two options: we clear out the institutions and ignore international law, pretending that international law and the concept of genocide do not exist. Or we finally do something.

As the director of a festival, do you also have to be an activist?

MR: I am not speaking here as an activist; I am speaking on behalf of my institution, because I find it politically and humanistically questionable for a cultural institution to remain silent in a democracy. I wanted to give a speech at the Romaeuropa Festival about the situation in the Middle East, but the festival was simply afraid to do so. Yet the speech is balanced. You can call it activism, but I'm really just addressing facts and trying to put them into context. From the visible, internationally networked position that we have as the Festival, I want to say something about it, something clear, something based on facts. I have tried to avoid any activism, to refrain from propaganda, but simply to state: the genocide in Gaza is a fact, and we as humanity cannot afford to remain silent out of mere concern or fear.

Unlike so many people who are moved by the Palestinian cause, who strangely so often forget to mention the unspeakable violence of Hamas, you refer to both the Israeli and Palestinian perspectives of suffering. You are not concerned with choosing one side or the other, but with humanity. If you too were to write only about Israel's desire for destruction in your letter...

MR: ... then it would make no sense. That is why I deliberately pointed out the deep historical cause of this horror, namely the genocide committed by Germany and Austria and all their collaborators against the European Jews. It has led to the ongoing conflicts in Israel and Palestine. We bear responsibility for all people who have been affected by this policy throughout history. The genocide perpetrated by the Nazis was met with silence, inaction, nothing was done. Yet everyone who wanted to know knew about it. But they thought, if I say something, I'll be considered a defeatist, the situation is unclear, maybe it's just resistance, it's war, all these arguments, all these linguistic games. What's more, no one at the time declared it to be genocide. There was no international law. People like to say that we cannot know how we ourselves would have acted under Nazi terror. Now we know: we simply would not have acted.

The situation is complicated; there are only losers in this war.

MR: Yes, Israeli society itself is suffering from Netanyahu's policies, which are effectively preventing the exchange of hostages. It is part of a tradition of deliberately exacerbating the situation, which Hamas is also pursuing. These are two sides of the same extremism. If the UN now says that genocide is taking place – I have not conducted my own investigations, I can only quote these institutions – then we can either decide to say that we simply do not care; let this genocide take place, we will not talk about it, and we also do not care what the international institutions that we founded to prevent precisely such massacres have to say; we are returning to the pre-war era. Or we can say we are going to take action.

You urge people to take a stand and resist, writing that it is high time to finally take a position. But aren't too many unqualified opinions on the war already contaminating the cultural space? Not a day goes by without some artist somewhere being disinvited for criticising Israel too loudly. Or are you only concerned with the artistic director level?

MR: No, I really mean cultural institutions. We need to address this, but not with the presumption that we are right. I am only quoting international bodies that are in a position to judge this; I am not expressing my own opinion on the matter. Because we already have enough opinions. But we can see, for example in Italy, where there is a general strike, that even a government like Meloni's feels compelled to respond. Far too late and probably insincere, but democracy works through pressure of this kind. As the three nations responsible for the genocide in the 1930s and 1940s, we cannot simply turn a deaf ear when the term genocide is mentioned. We can no longer say: it doesn't matter, let's wait another two years. And I'm not saying all this two days after 7 October, but two years later.

You also engage in self-criticism. You write that it seems to you as if you are remaining silent in a verbose way when you simply continue to produce poetic theatre. But the question remains: what is the point of talking, and above all, to whom? To Netanyahu?

MR: When I opened the Vienna Festival last May in front of 50,000 people, a small group of demonstrators stood in front of the stage and shouted, ‘Milo, say something about Gaza, say something!’ I thought that wasn't the right moment for me. But I also found it shameful that we had this huge stage and could not and did not want to talk about the ongoing destruction. Because we are afraid, because we want to protect our institution! Because we think we are putting ourselves in the line of fire, which we do not want to expose ourselves to. Because we are opportunists. Now I am ready to give my answer, and I wanted to give it publicly in Rome. But the festival rejected that, just as I would have rejected it some time ago. But I simply couldn't come to Rome with a comedy while 100,000 people are on the streets. So I decided to publish this text now, in order to have said it – at least – for the festival weeks. I am speaking to my friends who work in this industry: theatre directors, dramaturgs, curators, artistic directors. There is an endless silence, especially in German-speaking countries. Of course, there are individual artists who speak out. But who cancels them? We do, the organisers.

At the end of your letter, you write: ‘Let us take a clear stand. Only then can we save our art, the theatre.’ How do words about Gaza save the theatre? Because otherwise it would no longer be taken seriously?

MR: Yes. The space for discourse is not empty. It is full of extremist opinions. And anyone who does not call for extremes on one side or the other is cancelled by the other side. I experienced this with the philosopher Omri Boehm last year at the Festwochen: he tried to mediate – and was attacked for doing so. If we don't defend the stage, the space for discourse, this symbolic space against extremes, and emphasise that humanity has only one side, then we leave it to the clamour of warmongers. If we don't express ourselves critically even now, when we have complete freedom of speech, how would we behave if we no longer had that freedom? We are very quick to judge the era of slavery and fascism, claiming that people acted wrongly back then. But they were in mortal danger. And us? We remain silent without being threatened. Let's take a very simple example: despite all my efforts, I couldn't find a single German-language newspaper, magazine or platform willing to publish my letter. Whereas in all other European countries it was not a problem, except in Italy, incidentally. Which probably says more about the ‘silence’ of the perpetrator nations of the Holocaust described in the letter than we would like.

You write that we should not get bogged down in ‘linguistic games’ over whether the term ‘genocide’ is appropriate. But isn't it important to clarify the difference between warfare and genocide before bringing out this big stick?

MR: International institutions took up the cudgels years ago. But we simply don't see it, don't want to see it. All those appointed by the international community to guard this word have, after long, perhaps too long, deliberation, put it on the table and declared it to be clear. In the meantime, the UN has even emphasised that there was intent, which is particularly difficult to prove. In short, we have all the evidence for the word ‘genocide’. There is no longer any doubt, unless you need it to legitimise your own inaction. This is more than just a war crime.

Taking a stand is already a kind of action for you, because it could lead to resistance from an international community of states that could put pressure on Israel?

MR: Take Vietnam, for example. No genocide was ever planned or carried out there. But there were horrific war crimes. At the time, the international community helped to stop the war by taking to the streets. Today, we are witnessing the absurdity of Netanyahu, a wanted war criminal, being able to travel to the United States, which should not be possible under international law, to work out a peace plan with Donald Trump. The standards have shifted so much that we no longer even notice it. As an artistic director, I cooperate with dozens of different institutions and countless people in Israel, and I am in almost daily contact with Israeli and Palestinian artists. I see the problems faced by the people in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv who go out to demonstrate and are ashamed of the destruction their state is causing. These people must be supported. Their shame must end. After all, this is also about Israel, about the continued existence of this country.

And one must not confuse the Israeli population with their government.

MR: What's more, Jewish people should not be confused with this government. Muslims have the same problem. After every extremist attack, anyone who wears a veil or a beard comes under suspicion. My parents-in-law grew up after the war. When they travelled abroad as Germans, everyone called them ‘damn Nazis’. But these were young hippies, people born after the war who had nothing to do with the crimes of the Nazis – quite the opposite.

Do you think Trump's peace plan has a chance?

MR: I have hopes, but no illusions. When someone like Netanyahu, who is a warring party, occupies a territory and – according to the International Criminal Court – commits genocide, offers peace to the population he is bombing, together with a man who has already offered peace to Ukraine together with Putin, then that is, well, dubious.

Netanyahu probably wants the war to continue.

MR: He needs the war because afterwards he will be out of the picture; then he will be put on trial, and the Milošević and Karadžić era will begin for him. The same applies to Hamas. Unless they are dead, they also belong before the International Criminal Court. Because they too are genocidal murderers. It is Palestinian and Israeli civil society that suffers under their insane leaders. We must protect them, and I stand by their side.

I can see how serious you are from the fact that, as a non-believer, you quote Bert Brecht and Delmore Schwartz as well as the New Testament, the words of Jesus.

MR: Firstly, the letter is also addressed to my Roman friends in the Vatican. And secondly, I shot a film about Jesus in Italy in 2020. The New Testament does indeed have a relevant message: Jesus confronts the temple priests and is asked if he knows the law. And he says, yes, of course. The law is great, but it is a dead letter. It must be translated into reality. If we as humanity say we have a code of conduct that is clearly interpreted – and yet we still do not intervene, accepting tens of thousands of deaths for political and strategic reasons – then something is fundamentally wrong. Then the time has come to quote the New Testament.

Interview: Stefan Grissemann, Profil