LA TIMES
Review: Steve McQueen’s ‘Occupied City’ is a masterful panorama of WWII-era Amsterdam
Justin Chang
January 4, 2024

One of the many stories we hear in “Occupied City,” Steve McQueen’s quietly staggering new documentary, charts the fate of an Amsterdam arts establishment during the German occupation. In 1941, the Hollandsche Schouwburg, or Dutch Theater, was renamed the Joodse Schouwburg, or Jewish Theater; only Jewish artists were allowed to perform there, and only for Jewish audiences. In 1942, the Nazis turned it into a deportation center and holding prison from which thousands of Dutch Jews were shipped to the Westerbork transit camp, then on to their deaths at extermination centers including Auschwitz and Sobibor. READ MORE