Contemporary witnesses to Hamas terror: National Library records 182 reports on Hamas terror

Three years after the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, the German National Library in Leipzig has added 182 reports from survivors and witnesses to its collection. Contemporary testimonies open up personal access to history, they make individual lives and experiences understandable and raise awareness of persecution, exclusion and violence, said the National Library.

More than 50,000 interviews from the USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive can be researched and viewed in the reading rooms in Leipzig. In this collection, the foundation documents the experiences of people who have been affected by anti-Semitism since 1945.

On October 7, 2023, fighters from Hamas and other extremist organizations killed around 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped more than 250 others as hostages to Gaza. The unprecedented attack sparked the Gaza War. Since then, more than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority. There has actually been a ceasefire in the Gaza war since October 2025; But there are always fatal attacks.