Judenräte (singular Judenrat; German for "Jewish council") were administrative bodies during the Second World War that the Germans required Jews to form in the German occupied territory.
It is the overall term for the enforcement bodies established by the Nazi occupiers to manage Jewish communities in German-occupied areas, although the Nazis established the name Ältestenrat in the ghetto's of Łódź and Theresienstadt and even in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. While the history of the term Judenrat itself is unclear, Jewish communities themselves had established councils for self-government as far back as the Medieval Era. While the Hebrew term of "Kahal" or "Kehillah" was used by the Jewish community, German authorities tended to generally use the term Judenräte.

The structure and missions of the Judenräte under the Nazi regime varied widely, often depending upon whether meant for a single ghetto, a city only or a whole region. In some cases jurisdiction was maintained over a whole country as in: Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Romania, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
In the beginning of April 1933, shortly after the National Socialist government took power, a report by a German governmental commission was presented on fighting the Jews. This report recommended the creation of a recognized Association of Jews in Germany (Verband der Juden in Deutschland), to which all Jews in Germany would be forced to associate. Then, appointed by the Reichskanzler, a German People's Ward was to assume responsibility of this group. As the leading Jewish organization, it was envisioned that this association would have a 25-member council called the Judenrat. However, the report was not officially acted upon.

Johanna “Hannah” Arendt (October 14, 1906 – December 4, 1975) was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact that "men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world". Arendt's work deals with the nature of power, and the subjects of politics, authority, and totalitarianism.

Arendt was born into a family of secular German Jews in the city of Linden (now part of Hanover), and grew up in Königsberg (the birthplace of Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant, renamed as Kaliningrad and annexed to the Soviet Union in 1946) and Berlin.

At the University of Marburg, she studied philosophy with Martin Heidegger. According to Hans Jonas, her only German-Jewish classmate, Arendt embarked on a long and stormy romantic relationship with Heidegger, for which she was later criticized because of Heidegger's support for the Nazi party when he was rector of Freiburg University.

Claude Lanzmann (born 1925) is a French filmmaker and professor at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.

Lanzmann was born in Paris. He attended the Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand. His Jewish family went into hiding during World War II. He joined the French resistance at the age of 18 and fought in Auvergne. Lanzmann opposed the French war in Algeria and signed the 1960 antiwar petition Manifesto of the 121.

Lanzmann's most renowned work is the nine-and-a-half hour documentary film Shoah (1985), which is an oral history of the Holocaust, and is broadly considered to be the foremost film on the subject. Of particular note is that Shoah is made without the use of any historical footage, and only utilizes first-person testimony from Jewish, Polish, and German individuals, and contemporary footage of several Holocaust-related sites.

Lanzmann persuaded Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski to be a witness in Shoah by calling forth—once again—his historical responsibility. Simultaneously, the complete text appeared in English translation, with introductions by Lanzmann and Simone de Beauvoir, providing multiple keys to the philosophical and linguistic preoccupations of the producers. It was also through Shoah that many viewers were first introduced to the work of American Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg.

Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as archetypes of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing such issues as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism. He is considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is also one of the co-founders of DreamWorks movie studio.

Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Three of Spielberg's films—Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993)—achieved box office records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time. To date, the unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide. Forbes puts Spielberg's wealth at $3.0 billion.

Liam John Neeson,OBE (born 7 June 1952) is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards. He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Bryan Mills in Taken, Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars (the film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars), Alfred Kinsey in Kinsey, Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins, and the voice of Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia film series.

He starred in other notable films such as Excalibur, The Dead Pool, Nell, Rob Roy, Les Misérables, The Haunting, Love Actually, Kingdom of Heaven, Taken, Clash of the Titans, The A-Team, Unknown and The Grey, as well as smaller arthouse films (e.g. Deception, Breakfast on Pluto, Chloe). He was ranked at number 69 on Empire magazine's 100 greatest movie stars of all time in 1997.

He was born in Ballymena, County Antrim and educated at St Patrick's College (now St Patrick's, Dundonald), Ballymena Technical College and Queen's University Belfast. He moved to Dublin after university to further his acting career, joining the renowned Abbey Theatre. In the early 1990s, he moved again to the United States, where the wide acclaim for his performance in Schindler's List led to more high-profile work. He is widowed and lives in New York with his two sons.