Today I went to the Nova Exhibition that is visiting DC for the next few weeks. The exhibition is an in-depth remembrance of the massacre that took place at the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023. Nearly 400 young people were killed by terrorists, many more were injured, and over 40 were taken hostage. All they wanted to do, said every taped interview, was dance.
Everything on display is from the festival site: bullet-riddled porta-potties, tents, books, backgammon sets, shoes, hats, and a Winnie the Pooh teddy bear. These items, I was told by a volunteer, are all “unclaimed.” Everything has a bar code because the Nova music festival was not only the site of a party and a massacre, but also a crime scene. Everything was painstakingly cataloged by the police and, what could be identified was returned to attendees and families, what could not has been cataloged and remains to tell the stories of those who cannot speak for themselves.
I was lucky enough to visit when a Nova survivor was present and able to speak for herself. Danielle Gelbaum, who was 22 in 2023 and is now 24, attended the Nova Music Festival with her sister. She spoke to us for an hour, recounting her survival in the midst of pure chaos, rockets, RPGs, machine guns, and hundreds of terrorists. “This was bigger than a terror attack. All the smoke.” She kept going, kept running, jumping from her car, sprinting across open ground, she said, not only to avoid bullets but because she wanted to protect her sister. She would not return to her parents alone. They would return together or not at all.
“We can’t be still,” she recounted thinking, as she and her friends fled from their car as it came to a standstill under gunfire. “I will not let them [the terrorists] catch me waiting for them.”
A miracle occurred when a white pickup truck passed her group as they ran through a field. Only trucks could make it over the terrain. An Israeli couple, who had also been at the festival, stopped and got 16 people into their truck, including those hanging from the doors. As they approached the nearest police station, those in the bed of the truck caught sight of police officers aiming guns at the vehicle, thinking they, themselves, were terrorists. Only shouts in Hebrew and the long hair of the women in the truck convinced the officers that they were fleeing terror instead of bringing it.
“We are not videos on Instagram,” Danielle reminded us. “We are not AI. We are real human beings.” Every survivor, every hostage, everyone who was lost, was, and is, a whole human world.
And as I made my way through the exhibit, touching the shoes and books left behind in the bloody aftermath of the attack, and seeing the faces of the hundreds who died, whose stories are unknown or yet to be told, it was a stark reminder. The news is loud. Media moves fast. Sometimes it’s important to take a minute to remember and retell the stories that really matter.