The first thing you encounter at the newly opened Nova Exhibition in Washington, D.C., is the aftermath of the attack.
Shoes, water bottles, phone chargers and other personal effects litter the ground amid festivalgoers’ tents. Like the heartbreaking “Lost and Found” section, which comes later, the items are so commonplace that you might mistake them for the detritus left after any music festival.
Then you hear the screaming.
Monitors and speakers broadcast the horrors of Oct. 7 as Nova Festival attendees — and the Hamas terrorists who murdered them — experienced it. The juxtaposition is shocking.
On one screen, you can hear a terrified young woman calling her parents for help, who arrived too late to save her life.
On another, a Palestinian terrorist calls his family to exuberantly report that he’s killed Jews, not Israelis. Overjoyed, his parents bless him and celebrate with him.
There is no rest for your eyes or ears at Nova. Everywhere you look, there is more carnage. A re-creation of the festival’s bar, where innocents sought shelter only to be raked with Hamas gunfire, is strewn with broken glass.
The empty shells of abandoned cars are stacked together. Hamas burned them down to the frames in case Israelis hid in them.
Near a wall of posters honoring the hostages still being tortured and held in Gaza is a particularly chilling loop of video. It features Shani Louk, her leg broken and bent at an unnatural angle, as she is dragged into a truck bed. Unconscious, she is beaten and spit upon by feverish mobs of terrorists.
Elsewhere at the exhibit is the re-creation, to scale, of a bomb shelter where dozens of young people sought refuge from barrages of incoming rockets meant to terrorize Nova attendees. In the end, just two women emerged as survivors after a shower of Hamas grenades buried them under the corpses and strewn body parts of their friends. They lay motionless in pools of blood to avoid detection by their attackers.
Others at Nova hid unsuccessfully in portable toilets, which are riddled with bullet holes. The actual toilets stand as a shocking reminder of the lives lost inside, while a video nearby shows footage of Hamas laughing as they methodically spray each toilet with bullets.
The sensory overload I felt at The Nova Exhibition in Washington, D.C., was painfully acute, yet insignificant compared to what that day must have been like for those who were there.
As I struggled to take it all in, I became aware of another sound amid the screams and gunfire, a sound that was somehow worse than either: laughter. The terrorists were there to rape, murder and kidnap young Israeli civilians. One particularly horrific placard recounts the systematic genital mutilation perpetrated by Hamas at the festival.
The Nova Exhibit shows in wrenchingly painful detail how a festival meant to celebrate love, peace and happiness turned into hell on earth. Frozen in time, the devastation is artfully presented, but it is as difficult and visceral as anything I have ever encountered.
It should be hard to witness.
I couldn’t help but notice the parallels with my recent visits to Auschwitz and Dachau, places that also force you to look antisemitic evil in the face. I was uncomfortable there too, but it was every bit as necessary.
As with the Holocaust, even if you know the facts, you simply cannot understand what happened on Oct. 7, 2023, without feeling the desperation of the victims, the glee of the perpetrators and the emptiness left in their wake.
My guide at the exhibit was Ilan Faktor, a longtime electronic music promoter in Israel, who produced the exhibit.
Faktor’s perspective was invaluable, and he was an articulate docent who calmly shared gritty details while also explaining the creative choices that he undertook to develop such a powerful experience that assaults so many senses simultaneously. He lost many friends to Hamas violence that day.
America is no stranger to terrorism, but we haven’t confronted anything like Nova. Equal parts fact and emotion, the exhibit is a warning: People are capable of unimaginably depraved cruelty. What happened that day was an attempt at genocide, and we cannot look away.
The festival was marred by 411 murders and more than 40 kidnappings.
The exhibit is not just a memorial; it is also a traveling crime scene. The forensic evidence on display should silence anyone doubting the intent of the perpetrators or the motivation and legitimacy behind Israel’s military response.
It is a reminder that this could happen at a music festival anywhere. This could happen here, to our young people, in places where they should feel safe and free to enjoy their lives.
I urge everyone to visit this haunting exhibit in Washington. Easily accessible from public transportation near the Gallery Place-Chinatown metro station, the Nova Exhibition will be in D.C. through July 6.
Lawmakers in Congress and administration officials should also make time in their busy schedules to see it. It will help underscore why America must stand with Israel as it continues to battle the groups responsible for the Oct. 7 attacks and as it seeks to destroy the nuclear weapons capability of the fundamentalist Islamist regime in Tehran, which vows to annihilate the Jewish state.
Teachers should bring students for real-world lessons on what can happen when antisemitism takes hold in society, is minimized, disregarded or justified. Our young people must understand that Hamas is not seeking a “Free Palestine” as it abhors peaceful coexistence, and that the terrorists and their sponsors, not Israel, are responsible for targeting civilians.
The Nova Exhibit is funded by donors including Scooter Braun, Joe Teplow and Josh Kadden, and the generosity and support of the wider Jewish community in America. All proceeds from ticket sales support the Tribe of Nova Foundation, which helps those impacted by the massacre heal through financial aid, social services, mental and occupational therapy, healing concerts and memorial events. The very act of visiting Nova is also one of social justice and philanthropy.
After the barrage of sounds, videos and artifacts, I eventually moved into a room of quiet reflection where candles illuminate the ghostly faces of everyone who was killed at Nova. And then, just moments later, I stepped through curtains into a space radiating warmth and light that ultimately left me feeling more inspired than depressed.
In this sacred space of healing, I had the privilege to meet several Nova survivors. The courage to relive those painful experiences to tell their stories and educate the world is awe-inspiring.
The final words on the walls of the Nova Exhibition are a rallying cry, a defiant message from the survivors to Hamas and everyone else who seeks the extermination of Jews: You will not win. We will dance again.
If you go
The Nova Exhibition
713 7th St. NW, Washington, D.C. novaexhibition.com
Armstrong Williams (www.armstrongwilliams.com; @arightside) is a political analyst, syndicated columnist and owner of the broadcasting company, Howard Stirk Holdings. He is also part owner of The Baltimore Sun.