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(JTA) – Rising up in Buffalo, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer at all times knew he was the kid of Holocaust survivors. His mother and father, each Polish Jews, informed him typically about their experiences surviving the focus camps.
“I knew many youngsters of Holocaust survivors whose mother and father didn’t talk about it,” Blitzer informed the Jewish Telegraphic Company. “However my mother and father had been very open about it. I’m grateful that they had been.”
However it wasn’t till Blitzer made his new CNN particular in regards to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum that he found a video survivor testimony his father, David Blitzer, had recorded within the Nineteen Nineties.
Filmed on the Holocaust Documentation and Training Heart in Hollywood, Florida, David Blitzer mentioned rising up within the Polish metropolis of Oświęcim, later “Germanized” into Auschwitz, the place his mother and father had been murdered. (Town is named Oswiecim once more right now.) He shared intimate particulars in regards to the mindset of the Germans round him, who he stated regretted that Hitler was in energy “solely after they began to lose the warfare,” and his perception that the US’ choice to not bomb the Auschwitz loss of life camp was an ethical failure.
David’s testimony, together with these like different survivors like Rita Kesselman and Irene Salomonawicz, is featured within the new CNN particular “By no means Once more: America Holocaust Memorial Museum: A Tour With Wolf Blitzer,” which airs Friday at 11 p.m. EST.
The hour-long particular, initially meant for the now-defunct streaming service CNN+, follows Blitzer and present museum director Sara Bloomfield as they discover the Washington, D.C. establishment and the historical past classes it provides. This system airs on the community lower than per week after fellow Jewish CNN correspondent Dana Bash’s personal particular on antisemitism in the US. It can subsequently be accessible on CNN’s digital platforms.
Blitzer, a 32-year veteran of CNN, beforehand spent near twenty years as a reporter for varied Israeli information shops and wire providers, together with a few years in Jerusalem. He spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Company about drawing on his household’s Holocaust historical past for the particular, his views on Israel and AIPAC right now, and what classes he and the workforce at CNN take from the American media’s protection of the Holocaust on the time.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
JTA: Inform me how this particular got here to be, and the way you bought concerned in it.
Blitzer: Properly, as you recognize, I’m the son of Holocaust survivors, so it is a very private story for me. And I grew up in Buffalo, New York, and heard my mother and pop discuss their experiences throughout the warfare – they had been fairly open with me and my older sister, so we realized all about it. All 4 of my grandparents, sadly, had been murdered throughout WWII, throughout the Holocaust. So I by no means received to know them. However folks at all times ask me, “What’s your actual identify?” And I say, “That was my grandfather’s identify.” I used to be named after my grandfathers: Wolf Isaac Blitzer.
A number of years in the past, after I was in Israel overlaying one of many wars in Gaza, CNN needed among the anchors to perform a little report on their private heritage, their historical past, their roots. And so in fact I stated sure. From Israel, I went to Poland. My mother and father had been Polish Jews. I visited Auschwitz and visited my mom’s hometown. My dad’s hometown was Oscwiecim [where Auschwitz was located]. I really went to these cities to arrange this report.
After you’d achieved this dive into your loved ones historical past, how did the thought to tour the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum take form?
Properly, all people at CNN mainly knew about my private historical past with the Holocaust. They’d all seen my little “Roots” package deal. And with growing antisemitism around the globe, together with in the US, and growing Holocaust denial that’s going round, CNN thought, “Properly, possibly Wolf ought to do a tour of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and present our viewers what’s occurring.” Individuals come to Washington, it’s place to go to and study in regards to the Holocaust. So it wasn’t my thought to do that documentary – among the management at CNN requested me to do it.
Was this your first time within the Holocaust Museum?
No, no, no. I bear in mind throughout the Jimmy Carter administration after they got here up with the thought. Stuart Eizenstadt was a significant home coverage advisory to President Carter — he’s now the chairman of the museum, however he was amongst those that really helpful that there needs to be a Holocaust museum in Washington. And so they agreed. Finally they determined to place it on the Nationwide Mall. I’m positive you recognize precisely the place it’s. I used to be the White Home correspondent for CNN throughout the Invoice Clinton administration when it was really opened. And I used to be there on that day, for the official opening with [Holocaust survivor and “Night” author] Elie Wiesel and others who had been there. It was simply an incredible expertise that the U.S. authorities would put collectively this excellent museum for future generations to study this horrible, horrible historical past.
It’s been fascinating to see the museum work out the way to take care of this new rise in antisemitism and the way to keep a public profile and proceed its advocacy for Holocaust schooling.
Particularly at a time when there are fewer and fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors nonetheless with us. Sadly, they’re all dying. The eyewitness accounts are so highly effective for schooling for highschool college students, and for others to study in regards to the Holocaust, however you recognize these private lectures from Holocaust survivors have gotten more and more tough, as a result of there’s so few Holocaust survivors left. My mother and father, sadly, are gone.
The excellent news is there are extra Holocaust remembrance museums across the nation. I used to be just lately very proud and glad to be serving to within the opening — and I didn’t go there, this was throughout COVID, I used to be Zooming in — the opening of the Birmingham, Alabama, Holocaust museum. And they also’re all around the nation now. Individuals are studying in regards to the Holocaust.
That is airing on CNN lower than per week after Dana Bash’s particular on antisemitism. Was that intentional, or coincidence?
I feel it’s extra of a coincidence. We weren’t making an attempt to air back-to-back, nevertheless it simply kind of occurred. Ours was prepared and we determined to launch it. It wasn’t a part of some coordinated programming.
This was the primary time you had seen this video testimony of your father. You’re mainly in dialog with him throughout the particular. What was that like for you?
I like my dad and I miss him. And it was laborious to observe him and listening to his tales about his brothers and the sisters who had been killed, his mother and father. It’s not straightforward.
I’m very happy with my mother and pop. They got here to America after WWII. Happily, in 1948, the U.S. Home of Representatives and the Senate handed what was known as the Displaced Individuals Act of 1948, which crafted, moreover, 400,000 immigration visas to displaced individuals, together with numerous Holocaust survivors. Sooner or later my dad was in Munich and he sees this lengthy line. And he stated, in these days, you see an extended line, you wait in line, as a result of there have to be one thing good on the finish of the road. He requested the lady in entrance of him, “Why are we ready in line?” And she or he stated, “Visas.” “Visas? For what?” “America.” So my dad waited in line, and fortunately, he signed himself [and my family] up.
Inside a number of weeks all of them received letters saying they’ve been authorised to return to the US, however they might inform you the place you had been going. And so they informed my dad, “You’re going to Buffalo.” And he stated, “Buffalo, the place’s that?” He didn’t know. And so they stated “New York.” New York! Plenty of Jewish folks there! He didn’t know Buffalo was 400 miles from New York Metropolis.
My mother and pop had little or no cash and couldn’t converse English. They got a chance to settle in Buffalo and ended up doing rather well. My dad grew to become a significant homebuilder in Western New York and was very happy with his success.
I wish to ask in regards to the content material of the particular itself. As you and Sarah Bloomfield, the museum’s director, are touring, there’s a giant emphasis on the goriest particulars of mass loss of life, significantly in Auschwitz. There’s quite a bit on the museum. Why give attention to these specifics of the mass loss of life operations?
I feel Sarah and I, we needed to be sure that whoever watches this documentary sees the Holocaust isn’t only a phrase. It’s a phrase that describes an actual horror, and we needed to underscore what that horror was. And so they do this so fantastically, so powerfully, on the Holocaust Museum in Washington, and when you’ve achieved the tour, I’m positive you could have, you see all of the gory particulars. And so we needed to underscore that, and hopefully that got here by.
I’d love to modify gears a bit. Earlier than you joined CNN, you labored for many years as a journalist in Israel. You continue to cowl the area often for the community right now, as you famous. What’s your feeling about protection of Israel points within the American media right now?
I feel the media does a reasonably good job overlaying Israel proper now. For those who check out the mainstream information channels and the papers, wire providers and magazines, I feel Israel will get numerous consideration, numerous good protection. Like in any story, you wish to cowl the nice, the dangerous and the ugly. Israel is a rustic like some other nation.
For those who check out the Israeli media, [including] the English-language [versions of] papers just like the Jerusalem Put up or Haaretz or Instances of Israel, and the Hebrew papers, they do a extremely thorough job overlaying what’s occurring in Israel. And I respect them an excellent deal. These are world-class journalists.
You additionally used to work as an editor at AIPAC. What did you make this yr of the group’s selections to get entangled in political spending for the primary time in US elections, and to endorse candidates who denied the outcomes of the 2020 election?
My feeling is simply that, that is simply me: let all these political motion committees do what they wish to do. I wouldn’t do it, nevertheless it’s not my division.
As you noticed, the museum is constructed not solely across the Holocaust, but in addition America’s response to it, together with how the American media reported it. Being probably the most distinguished journalists in America, what classes, if any, did you’re taking from seeing how the American media coated this occasion in historical past?
I feel it has impacted me, and it’s impacted lots of people that work at CNN. We wish to be sure that when there are horrors occurring on the planet, wherever they’re occurring — they’re nonetheless sadly occurring huge time proper now, far and wide — we don’t ignore these tales, and we report them. And CNN has achieved an incredible job over these years. I’ve been with CNN now for 32 years. And ensuring that once we go to Asia or Africa or Europe or wherever, South America, and if there’s horrible issues occurring, we would like the world to know what’s occurring. And we do this.
All of us, particularly folks like me, we’re very delicate to creating positive we don’t ignore these sorts of tales. Within the buildup to World Warfare II, numerous what was occurring in Europe, in Germany particularly, it actually wasn’t reported in a lot element. That was a mistake. [The Jewish Telegraphic Agency covered the leadup to the Holocaust and many early massacres of European Jews in detail at the time.]
During the last decade, CNN has had numerous totally different management modifications, however for some time it was actually referred to as the “either side community.” Is that philosophy one thing that may maintain if you’re overlaying atrocities such as you’re speaking about?
Once we’re coping with a horrible difficulty like a bloodbath, genocide, or Holocaust, we by no means do either side. We by no means took a have a look at, “Properly, have a look at the Nazis, why had been they killing all these Jews?” In politics it’s one factor. However if you’re coping with atrocities, it’s not either side.
Politics result in atrocities, although, don’t they?
Politics can result in atrocities, sure. However as soon as atrocities are occurring, it’s not a two-sided story.
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