Former British PM Johnson visits London Nova exhibition, urges public to go before it closes tonight

Former British prime minister Boris Johnson is urging the public to visit the Nova Exhibition in London before it closes tonight, describing the immersive memorial to victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on the Nova music festival as a necessary reminder of the violence.

Johnson toured the exhibition in Shoreditch with released hostage Bar Kuperstein, Nova survivor May Hayat, and Michael Marlowe, whose son Jake Marlowe, a British citizen, was killed in the attack.

“People should come and see this,” Johnson said. “It’s the bucket of cold water that people need… to understand what happened on October 7th.”

The exhibition has attracted more than 40,000 visitors since opening on May 20, organizers said. It recreates the festival site using original staging, burned vehicles and personal belongings recovered after the attack, in which Hamas-led terrorists killed hundreds of festival-goers and abducted dozens.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan visited the site last week.

Johnson described the attack as “entirely calculated” and “sickening and evil,” saying the exhibition helps visitors grasp “the sheer naked cruelty” of the assault.

Reflecting on the rise in antisemitism since the attack, Johnson called anti-Jewish sentiment “a virus in the human bloodstream” that had reemerged and said people needed to understand “the madness that’s going on in the West right now.”