Simon Sharma (1:57)

Plus, as we reach a moment when the last survivors are passing on, it's now up to us historians to make sure that the full enormity of what happened will always be remembered.

Christiane Amanpour (2:08)

The Holocaust, 80 years on. Historian Simon Sharma's deeply personal journey to Auschwitz, he joins Hari Srinivasan to talk about creating his PBS documentary. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. The age of America being seen as a bastion of free and fair democracy is on hold. That's the message from American liberals, some traditional conservatives, and even America's once overseas allies. When Donald Trump reentered the White House less than three months ago, he began with a flurry of wide ranging executive orders. And now the impact of those policies are hitting home hard. Take just one state for an example, Massachusetts people with no criminal records have been deported to foreign prisons without warning. ICE agents are breaking the car windows of migrants and pulling students off the streets. And the world's leading universities being threatened with funding cuts if they refuse to comply with the president's mandate to cut diversity and equity and inclusion. Meantime, the tariff fallout continues. One think tank estimates that they will cost Massachusetts alone $3.5 billion a year in US import costs. So how does anyone navigate this? Well, our next guest says Americans must stand up for what they believe in. Maura Healey is the Democratic governor of Massachusetts, an influential voice in her party. Her state is being targeted, and she joins me now from Boston. Governor Healy, welcome to the program.

Maura Healey (3:56)

It's good to be with you.

Christiane Amanpour (3:58)

Is that about right? I mean, overseas, we are feeling that this is not the America that has always projected itself as a shining light.

Maura Healey (4:08)

No, it's not. And, you know, I can tell you that every day we see things that the Trump administration is doing that are just really counter to a true America first agenda, true American values and freedoms and the reasons why so many people come to America and study here and research here and start companies here. I mean, there's a reason that America, since Post World War II, has led the world in scientific discovery, in innovation, in knowledge, Right? And with that, tremendous economic growth. But what Donald Trump has done from day one, two states like Massachusetts and this country and world markets, is do everything to dismantle that.

Christiane Amanpour (4:52)

So let me ask you, because not only are there the tariffs, which no doubt you have to deal with as a state, but there's also the financial crackdown on not just universities, but research centers. They're not just academic institutes, as we might know them. They're not public schools. They are research centers that the world has come to rely on. For all the innovation that comes from Harvard or MIT or anywhere in your state, what is the impact of that?

Maura Healey (5:20)

Well, let me hit tariffs and then move to your university's question. Tariffs. Remember, Donald Trump ran on an agenda to lower costs. And every day he has done things that are more inflationary, that are raising costs. As governor here, I have been focused on, number one, I cut taxes. Number two, I passed the largest housing bill in history to build more housing. Where do we get our lumber from Canada? Where do we get other products from Mexico? So he's raising housing costs, he's raising energy costs, he's raising the price on everything. That hurts our economy. It hurts the American economy. When you talk about colleges and universities, remember that a place like Massachusetts we have 100,000 foreign students who come to Massachusetts colleges and universities to study, to do research, to engage in efforts to right now do clinical trials and develop the cures and treatments to cure cancer and Alzheimer's and all these things. We have a number who've won Nobel Prizes from here. And also importantly, these are our entrepreneurs. These are people who are starting AI companies, robotics companies, life science companies, companies that are so important to cybersecurity and defense. So what he's done is, in some instances, try to disappear people from our streets. I mean, literally grabbing a graduate student with no cause, with no due process. And I say that Christiane, as somebody who is a former prosecutor and twice attorney general, that's happening. And then he's cutting off funding and he's threatening. And, you know, it just, it doesn't make any sense because right now, as we speak, we have had people in Massachusetts whose labs have been shut down, people have been laid off, people who are in line and receiving clinical trial treatment for cancer and all sorts of other diseases are completely shut down. And we have foreign students opting to go elsewhere. It's a terrible situation. And for somebody, Donald Trump, let's remember, he talks about America first. This isn't America first. If you want to reassure manufacturing, if you want to bring talent here, then don't drive talent away, because that's what he's doing. By targeting life sciences, by targeting NIH funding, by targeting our colleges and universities, you have people who are forced to leave, who are fired from positions because the universities and research institutes can't fund them. And you know what you have, and this is what the public needs to understand what Donald Trump is doing. He is giving away America's intellectual assets. Because right now, because of what he's doing, China, countries from the Middle east and elsewhere are on our campuses, in our state. And by the way, they're not just recruiting here, they're recruiting in states around the country, because this is impacting all states. They're recruiting our talent and saying to our scientists and researchers, come to China. We'll give you a lab. We'll give you 90 staff people. And why would the president of the United States allow China to come and take away our talent? Talent that is developing the cures and treatments, pioneering the technology, starting the new companies that are going to change the world. It makes zero, zero sense economically and in terms of who we are as a nation. And certainly, we just continue each day with Donald Trump at the helm to lose our competitive advantage in the world.

Christiane Amanpour (9:07)

You know, you Say that. And I have to bring up what a Brown University professor of political economics recently said, it was quoted in one of the newspapers, that the world, the world where we are, is waking up every day realizing that the Trump administration doesn't know what it's doing. So I wonder whether you think there is a reason. But I also want to, I want to ask you about the rule of law. Cause America stands for the rule of law. And that's very important, not just in human rights and individual rights, but in business, you know, practices. So when you see Senator Van Hollen going over to El Salvador to try to get one of his constituents out of their, you know, gang jail there, he was exported or deported with no due process. This administration says, too bad. You know, yeah, it was an administrative error, but we're not getting him back. This constitutional crisis that we were told would happen when the administration, if it did challenge or refuse a Supreme Court or higher court order, it's here now, right?

Maura Healey (10:13)

It is. It is. And it's in. It's a. It's really quite unbelievable where we find ourselves. And just so folks understand my background, I was attorney general. In fact, I served alongside Pam Bonney for a time as the attorney General here in Massachusetts. I'm also somebody who has investigated, prosecuted, and put away members of drug cartels, including folks who are not here lawfully. So I have extensive experience when it comes to going after and apprehending those who are a public safety threat and those who have caused harm and need to be held accountable. I also know that what we're seeing is something we've never seen before in this country. The weaponization of the Department of Justice, the launching of completely false, false investigations under false pretenses, the refusal to comply with the rule of law, the refusal now to comply with orders from the United States Supreme Court. We've not seen a president of this country ever do this. And we're on the eve of celebrating 250 years of this great American experiment here, right this weekend in Massachusetts. In fact, never in the course of history has a president so refused to comply with the rule of law. It's bad for our people. It's bad for our democracy. It's very bad for business. Look at the way in which the Trump administration is choosing to weaponize all of the regulatory agencies, the IRS and the US Department of Justice. And, you know, this is something that I am going to continue to speak out about and speak up against. I think it's very important, Christiane, in this moment, that we Continue to see people push back on these efforts that are illegal, that are unconstitutional, that are wreaking tremendous harm on markets, on America's world standing, and for me, on the people of Massachusetts and everyday Americans across this great country. So as governor, I'm going to continue to focus on what I can. How do I lower costs, I cut taxes. I'm building more housing. I'm looking to push and support innovation, including investments in education, in our workforce, and to continue to talk to our foreign partners. You know, I've met recently with many of our partners from Canada, from Mexico, and from elsewhere to say, come to Massachusetts, continue to do business with us as a state. We're a business that is part of an important global economy, and we support that global talent, and we support the work that we can do with other nations. But we're up against an administration that is doing everything to isolate America from our allies, to do things that are incredibly destructive to the economy. I mean, the loss of wealth is something, I don't know that people could have imagined that we'd see this loss of wealth in such a short part of time. And I'll tell you the other thing. The fear is real. I've heard from people here who have been green card holders from companies like Canada and Germany and other European countries who are in the process of the final step in their naturalization interview. They don't know whether they should show up for that for fear of being arrested and hauled off to some gulag somewhere in El Salvador. That's the reality. And that's why it is very important that people stand up. It's very important. What Harvard University did and said, enough is enough. And, you know, on that note, I just want to be clear as well. There's no place for antisemitism. No place at all. In fact, as governor, I set up an Antisemitism Commission task force to study this and to identify more things we can do. There's no doubt that Jewish students on campuses have been treated poorly in this country. And colleges need to change. And Harvard has already taken steps to do that. I've also said that's not what this is about. This is about a classic move out of an authoritarian playbook. And I don't use those words lightly, Christiane. But when you have a president who is looking to silence all critics, all opposition, law firms, companies, colleges and universities, everyday Americans, that's the reality of what's happening when you have a president who each day is issuing an order, I'm gonna take away tax status for colleges and universities or any organization that's involved in climate work or in democracy work, or any organization that's about promoting equal opportunities for people of color, women in this country. I mean, that's what is going on. To say nothing of the corruption and what's happened within DOGE and the access to information that Elon Musk and others have had that can manipulate markets. It's really important that people both understand what's going on and also speak up about it and demand accountability, which at this point is going to come from the American people and from, frankly, Republicans in Congress who, you know, should not have stood by and allowed all of their power and authority to be usurped by Donald Trump.

Christiane Amanpour (15:37)

So let me ask you then, because obvious question is the Democrats appear to seem to still be in the wilderness, shell shocked from what happened in November. Can't believe it. What is, what do we stand for? What should we do? There's your voice, which is clearly one of, you know, fighting for your constitutional rights. And then there are others who, who have a different view of how to so called thread the needle. I know Gretchen Whitmer was sent, went to the, the governor of Michigan, went to the White House and suddenly found herself a prop in some kind of, you know, PR exercise. And she had to hide her face or she decided to hide her face. Cory Booker did that incredible speech in Congress. But do you see a coherent, I mean, what we're seeing is that Harvard, as the leading institution in the world, actually led the way and said, we cannot give up our prerogatives. Do you see any way of banding together, like, can the Democrats fight back? You said Republicans, but they're clearly not going to do it. Who else can do it?

Maura Healey (16:40)

Well, Republicans have to be made to do it. And I'm heartened by what we're seeing in some of the town halls in this country where constituents, including Trump supporters, are pushing back and saying, this isn't what I voted for. I didn't vote for chaos. I didn't vote to continue to see higher prices at the grocery store or the gas pump. That needs to continue. What also needs to happen is people like me who are in positions of leadership need to do their jobs. One of the reasons I believe that Donald Trump won is because of a perception that the Democratic Party was not delivering for everyday Americans. I can tell you, as governor, I'm working to do that every day. That's why I cut taxes. I'm the first governor in Massachusetts and we've had multiple Republican governors to Cut taxes to lower costs. You know, my focus on building more housing, investing in workforce and vocational training, investing in innovation and sectors that are going to grow our economy and opportunity, investing in advanced manufacturing here in our state. These are the things that we need to continue to focus on. And I talk about every day, you know, the reality, I think for most Americans, you want to be able to have a home. You want that home to be safe. You want health care when you need it, you want your kids to have a shot at a good education or career opportunities. And every family wants upward economic mobility. These are basics, you know, and we need to align around that common purpose and get that done and deliver. We also need to speak out when things are going wrong. Wrong when things are being done that are un American, that are unconstitutional. Because we have a system both for the markets and for who we are as a democracy that's predicated on the rule of law. And we've got a president right now who doesn't adhere to that. And he's surrounded by folks, unfortunately, that don't have the wherewithal to speak back. So let me ask you to continue to come.

Christiane Amanpour (18:36)

I want to ask you about that, Governor, because you just mentioned Pam Bondi, and I was actually interested because I hadn't realized that, you know, you had worked together with her in the past. So Pam Bondi is sitting in the White House when President Trump and President Bukele are there and talking about this guy who's been deported to Salvador. And Stephen Miller stands up as if on script and on cue and says that, no, he's being viewed as a criminal, where there's his lawyers, everybody else says that there's no evidence he's not a gang member. Trump administration itself said it was an administrative error. When you talk about Republicans, why is it that a Pam Bondi would sit there and let this happen? Do you think she really believes this?

Maura Healey (19:20)

I. I can't. I can't explain it. I cannot explain it because I know that as a prosecutor, as attorney general, I swore up an oath to the Constitution. That case is so, to my mind, emblematic of what's going on. There's no evidence. It's been days now, weeks maybe. No evidence of wrongdoing. And in fact, more than that, the Trump administration has admitted that there's no evidence of wrongdoing. Bring this poor man home. Focus on real crime, focus on real corruption. Do the work of the American people. You know, that's what I would say. So I can't really begin to get my head around what is going on, what I see the responses, it's certainly not anything that is operating within a system that is a system of laws and the rule of law in this country. And that has been important to who America is for these past 250 years.

Christiane Amanpour (20:24)

And not to mention of course, those foreign students who are also incarcerated with no due process and no charges. Governor Healey, thank you so much for joining us and stay with CNN because we'll be right back after the break.

Maura Healey (20:43)

I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service, how to choose the right vpn, whether to trust public Wi fi, what to do with those annoying cookie pop ups and more. To help me answer these rapid fire questions, I've invited Rachel Toback back to the show. You may remember her from our episode about setting and managing your passwords. Rachel is an ethical hacker and the CEO of Social Proof Security where she helps people and companies keep their data Safe. Listen to CNN's terms of service with me, Claire Duffy, wherever you get your podcast. Now.

Christiane Amanpour (21:29)

It appears both Tehran and Trump want to strike a nuclear deal and talks are expected to continue this weekend. But just because they want it doesn't mean it'll be easy or even that it'll happen. Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Whitkoff, flip flops on his demands. While the Iranian Foreign Ministry tweeted on Wednesday that moving the goalpost constitutes a professional foul and an unfair act in football. In diplomacy, any such shifting could simply risk any overtures falling apart. So the path is unclear. What we do know is Trump wants to ensure Iran never has a nuclear weapon. Don't forget he pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal known as the JCPOA and Iran has since been accelerating its uranium enrichment. Tehran wants to avoid a US Or Israeli war and get draconian sanctions lifted. Our next guest is a former member of Iran's nuclear negotiating team. Now, as a businessman with great connections, Siruz Nasseri advises informally and back during Obama's original JCPOA agreement. Ahead of the next round of talks, he joined me in the studio with his view of what's going on behind the scenes. Sirus Nasseri, welcome to the program.

Siruz Nasseri (22:46)

Thank you. And thank you for the invite.

Christiane Amanpour (22:48)

You are welcome because we really do want to understand what's going on. You were involved in nuclear negotiations way back when when they first started. You've been informally involved all throughout, including the jcpoa. Do you think there is actually a good chance of a deal being struck this time?

Siruz Nasseri (23:08)

Short answer yes, longer answer. I have to then put some content and context into it.

Christiane Amanpour (23:15)

Well, the context at the moment is that Trump said in front of the Israeli prime minister that there would be talks, that he sent a letter to your supreme leader, that he only wants to make sure that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon, cannot weaponize any of its enriched uranium. Then Witkoff went to meet in Oman and the whole thing seems to have taken a U turn. His latest is that they have to dismantle it all. This is what your foreign minister said about that Mr. Arakchi, who will be the main Iranian negotiator.

Simon Sharma (23:52)

Different and contradictory statements from US Officials are unhelpful. Real positions become clear at the negotiating table. If the US Brings constructive positions, we hope talks on a potential agreement framework can begin.

Christiane Amanpour (24:07)

Break that down for us.

Siruz Nasseri (24:09)

You know, it's kind of deja vu and deja connu. It's, you know, for Arafchi and his team, they have seen this for the last two decades. Every time there is an attempt to negotiate with the west, you may remember this, it started with Troika. You were covering this everywhere, including in Geneva. When there was a climax, everything goes forward. But at some point, then somebody on the Western side, it's usually the Americans, somebody in the US Administration says they have to just dismantle the whole thing, even though it is known that this is just not going to happen.

Christiane Amanpour (24:47)

So after a long time, there was a deal. The JCPOA took about two years to negotiate, but it seemed to be working. Iran was deemed by the IAEA to be maintaining its side of the bargain. You were hoping to get more sanctions relief and all the rest. Then Trump, when he became president, pulled the US out of it, essentially saying that he could get a better deal, he needed a better deal. And since then, Iran has zoomed to extra enrichment to about 60%, which is very close to to how, if you wish to make a bomb, you could just turn that. That key. Why do you think Trump and Iran today are in a position to strike a deal?

Siruz Nasseri (25:31)

Well, on the one hand, at least, the way the US Is presenting it is that they consider this to be now probably close to an imminent threat. And an imminent threat, then perhaps it follows that certain considerations have to be made on the military side and at the same time, probably in parallel to that, a diplomatic initiative. I'm not saying that this is justified, but I'm just saying this is the way things happen.

Christiane Amanpour (25:58)

So what you're saying is that Trump has sent an aircraft carrier pre positioned B52 bombers. Israel is talking tough, but they really also want to. Well, at least the US Wants to do a deal.

Siruz Nasseri (26:08)

Sure. The threat is real. I mean, it used to be previous administrations, including during Obama period, they were talking about an option. They always said that there is always a military option available on the table. This is a real threat. This time it's not just an option. All this preparation that has been made.

Christiane Amanpour (26:28)

So just let me be clear. Iran is feeling the heat that this is a active military threat that could actually be implemented, whether or not it's by the United States or whether they empower, allow watch Israel do it.

Siruz Nasseri (26:44)

Well, it's probably another difference between now and 2012-15, when JCPOA was, was forming and putting into implementation, is that it is evident that Israel has a more, more of a role. And that of course makes it a lot more difficult because Israel's position would be, you know, beyond even maximalist. And probably that's, that's part of the reason that these sort of dynamics are happening in Washington where Witkoff goes to Muscat, promises something and then he comes back, he openly, you know, says it to the media and then at situation Rule, everybody gets together and they would probably have to step back a little bit.

Christiane Amanpour (27:25)

We understand that there's a divided view within the Trump administration. Some believe, including J.D. vance, that there should be diplomacy. Others believe that it needs to be a much harder line, maybe even take out Iran's nuclear facilities, including people like Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State. What is it that brought the Iranian Ayatollah Khamenei to agree to these talks? Having been very clear at the beginning, we can't trust the Americans see what they did last time, et cetera.

Siruz Nasseri (27:55)

I'm not a military expert, but let me start with that. Let's say they sit in the Situation Room, they consider what happened in Muscat. The next meeting in Muscat is coming up and they need to prepare for that because whatever happens there will also be analyzed in Tehran. Let's say President Trump wants to know, for instance, how far the military option can go. And he will probably ask Secretary Hexit or the, you know, operation chief, Mr. Feinberg, okay, what are our options? I don't think it's sufficient to just target the known targets like Natanz or elsewhere. At the end of the day, what is the core for making a nuclear bomb? It's a material. It's about 270 kilogram plus of 60% enriched uranium. Then if he asks, you know, Mr. Feinberg can your generals give me with sufficient confidence that you can target, that you can destroy it, regardless of whatever, you know, radiation and other problems that it can cause. You can either snatch it back or destroy it so that, you know, whatever Iran has been able to creates so much so far during all these years, in order to have the material that we consider to can be converted to a bomb, can we take it out? And I don't think any general can say with sufficient level of confidence, yes. And therefore the question is, can there a decision be made in Washington to actually implement a military action? There are doubts about it. Therefore, I think President Trump is rightly thinking about giving diplomacy a much higher chance to proceed. To me, it seems like probably Wycoff has been a little bit, you know, considered to be going too soft too quickly.

Christiane Amanpour (29:43)

He was just saying what Trump had said.

Siruz Nasseri (29:45)

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Christiane Amanpour (29:47)

So now you think they're thinking, oh, crikey, we need to be tough as the negotiations start?

Siruz Nasseri (29:51)

I don't think so. I think it's very likely that at the next meeting they will come back to a sort of a level of, you know, a platform that can be at least considered by the Iranian side. Otherwise, there'll be no more negotiations.

Christiane Amanpour (30:03)

Okay, so we've talked about the military threat, but Iran has suffered quite a lot in terms of setbacks over the last year. We've had the. We've seen that its ballistic missiles were no match for Israel's Iron Dome and the allies defenses in the two encounters that they had. We've seen that Israel has taken out all Iran's proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, goodbye Bashar Assad, Syria is gone, et cetera. Does Iran feel that unless it does this deal with the threats that Trump has said, you know, either a deal or military, that the regime might fall. What pressure is Iran feeling from inside? Because there are protests as well as.

Siruz Nasseri (30:43)

You know, I really couldn't contemplate, you know, how the leaders in Iran would think about this. But what I can see is that President Trump has very clearly said, we have one issue. Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb. And I think attached to that, they sometimes have said that we need to make sure. Make sure means what? We need to be able to monitor it. Right. So we are talking about not having nuclear material that is just ready to be converted to a bomb level, plus some sort of monitoring which controls the situation on the other side. He knows that he has to do something about the lifting of sanctions. I think the Iranians probably, they look at the threat, but if I were them, I would also look at the opportunity because the difference now between when the negotiations took place with John Kerry and Obama is that Obama was really tight fisted. He didn't have control of the Congress and he had to manage to give something without really having the authority at his level to give what is sufficient to make a proper deal. Trump, on the other hand, he has the power to manage the media. If he comes to a deal, he will sell it to the American people and he will be also able to carry the Congress. That creates a lot of opportunity because it can go a lot further on the lifting of sanctions. But what is important at this stage is the way Trump is looking at things. We're talking about ground zero at this stage. Okay? Iran is another country, another opportunity. MacKenzie in 2015 was saying that Iran, in terms of forex, the balance sheet, it can very quickly become a $1 trillion state. And I think Trump, he likes to aim high and that's the kind of thing he likes. But looking beyond that, sorry, just to explain this, what you said, on a grander scale, you know, let's go to 30,000ft. What he sees is a China that is growing and his main aim to be able to bring some sort of geopolitical rebalancing globally, but also in this region. And having Iran somehow closer and able to work with the United States, I think gives a lot more margin to Trump, and I think that's what matters.

Christiane Amanpour (33:11)

You talked about the stockpile of uranium under the original jcpoa. Russia took the stockpiles of enriched uranium as part of the deal. Now Iran is saying it doesn't want to get rid of those stockpiles because it says, well, we saw us do a deal, then the American president pulled out, left us, you know, standing. Why should we give up this stuff in case they pull out again? That's going to be a bit of a deal breaker, isn't it? And also right now, one of your. Is it Aragchi or whoever is in. Is in Moscow talking to Putin?

Siruz Nasseri (33:44)

Yes, I think it's just an exchange with Moscow. I don't think anything will be really coming from. I mean, the view of Moscow is probably important now for the current system in Iran, but eventually it's the Iranians who did make a decision on this. It's not a matter of, you know, it's not 01. It's not that. Either you give up the whole stockpile or there will be zero and dismantlement. No, there is a lot in between. There is what Witkoff says does make sense and Eventually, I think that the deal will be on that basis.

Christiane Amanpour (34:16)

Which one?

Siruz Nasseri (34:17)

That Iran can have enrichment up to 3.67 level, which can be used to even be sent in a cycle. Uranium comes in, is converted, is, you know, enriched to 3.67, it goes to Russia to be converted to fuel, it comes back for Bushehr, for the civilian. Right, that's possible, and it's been done before. It just has to be done in a different way. Because Trump doesn't like jcpoa. He wants another kind of a deal. They just need to reformat that.

Christiane Amanpour (34:48)

You know, the original JCPOE did not deal with anything except for the nukes. Now we're hearing the administration wants to check weaponization, look at the missiles, maybe include negotiations over your missiles.

Siruz Nasseri (35:01)

No, no, the missiles were dealt with actually in jcpoa. Why? Because it was in the UN resolution, and that arrangement was that Iran will not produce missiles that are specially designed for a nuclear bomb delivery. And therefore that can be a basis for another understanding. But I don't think Trump's focus is on missiles right now, and rightly so. But I look at what he does and what he says, and I think. I think it makes a lot of sense to focus first on the issues that have been dealt with before. And apparently the main source of concern, nuclear threat, as US sees it, monitoring. And on the other side, the sanctions. Fourth element is then, if we do all of this this time around, not like jcpoa, when the Europeans were going to benefit on the economic side this time around, how can us also benefit in being able to enter into this, you know, economic activity and invest in.

Christiane Amanpour (36:08)

Iran, upbeat on this? Why would you be? And why would the Iranian government be, in terms of dealing with a president who showed that what he did was pull out of the last agreement?

Siruz Nasseri (36:21)

I can't say I'm upbeat about it. There's still a long way to go. It's very difficult to say that there will definitely be an agreement, but my view is eventually there will be a sort of a moderate agreement, which I'm not happy about. Because what I like to see is the Iranian people who have been suffering a lot, they see a change in their situation. And that can only happen if there is really a grand opening of economic activity and collaboration with Iran from not just from China and others, but also from the west, hopefully including with America. And that can bring hope to the Iranian youth and other people. You know, the Iranians are very talented. Some of them dominate the Silicon Valley. But when they're sitting in Tehran they're isolated from the world. What they like to see is that to be able to sit on their laptop, maybe produce a source code, a computer, be able to exchange with somebody in California, sell it to them, get the money, you know, these simple things that are taken granted elsewhere. But in Iran, it just, you know, it's all obstacles.

Christiane Amanpour (37:22)

We'll see what happens. Siruz Nasseri, thank you very much indeed.

Siruz Nasseri (37:25)

Thank you.

Christiane Amanpour (37:27)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's position is clear. It's well known that he takes a much more hardline view on Iran favoring military action against nuclear sites. And there are also divisions reported within Trump's own national security cabinet about whether to take the diplomatic or the military route. We'll be right back after this short break. This week marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp in Germany. This just a few months after the liberation of Auschwitz was commemorated, the notorious extermination camp in Poland that was the epicenter of the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust. These grim anniversaries offer us the opportunity for reflection. And now in a new PBS documentary, the 80 Years on, historian Simon Sharma travels across Europe to speak to survivors and better understand this very dark period in our history. As a British Jew with ancestral roots in Lithuania, it is also deeply personal for him.

Simon Sharma (38:41)

All over the world, hatred and Holocaust denial are on the rise. And as we reach a moment when the last survivors are passing on, it's now up to us historians to make sure that the full enormity of what happened will always be remembered.

Siruz Nasseri (38:56)

Auschwitz did not fall from the sky. It comes step by step. Evil comes step by step.

Christiane Amanpour (39:07)

And Simon Sharma joins Hari Srinivasan to discuss what he learned on this particular journey.

Hari Srinivasan (39:13)

Christian, thanks. Simon Sharma, thanks so much for joining us. Your film the Holocaust 80 years on, will be airing on PBS on Tuesday. I guess. First, why did you want to make this film? Why now?

Simon Sharma (39:26)

Well, two reasons, really. One, there's a painful paradox that we're facing right now, namely, there's never been more Holocaust education available, whether in schools, museums, memorials. But we're also faced with a kind of eruption of antisemitism. Very upsetting. I think it's almost as though antisemitism has been normalized, not just in the kind of far left and far right, but actually it's almost the sort of result, I think, of people yawning when they hear the word Auschwitz, exactly because they think they know everything there is to know about it. And the Holocaust used a pretext for people who are passionately devoted to Israel, both rightly or wrongly. So I've known for a while that this isn't the whole story and that there was a much more to it and a different kind of story to tell, both in terms of timing and also in terms of ultimately, how did this uniquely horrific, catastrophic extermination come about? So we begin the story, as you know, of horrifying massacres as early as the summer of 1941, and in spatial terms as well. It isn't just the Nazis and the Germans who managed to bring this about. So our mission to ourselves was notwithstanding, everybody feeling there is nothing more to learn about the Holocaust, we felt, including myself, I learned a lot while filming it and researching it. There is a lot more to say and a lot more that urgently needs to be said and shown.

Hari Srinivasan (41:13)

Why start there in Lithuania? What was happening there for our audience?

Simon Sharma (41:16)

Yes, well, it was an extraordinary, a horrifyingly tragic moment. Almost as soon as the Germans invade Eastern Europe, invade Lithuania in this particular case, they are embarking on an experiment. There is no question that extermination was at the top of Hitler's agenda, But how it possibly could be done while fighting war at the same time was a matter. It's terrible to talk about it this way. Matter of practical strategy. So it necessary really to test the waters to see if local populations in Eastern Europe would, as the Nazis correctly guessed, be more than willing collaborators. So a few days, just a very few days after the Germans occupied, for example, the cities of Kaunas and Vilnius, and we concentrate at the beginning on Kaunas, terrible massacres occurred, which is where my maternal. My mother's family originally came from. There were 4,40,40 synagogues in Kaunas before the war. And Jews in Kaunas were an amazing community. They're an amazing community. There were five Yiddish newspapers, There was youth organizations, there was an athletic club. There was every kind of Jewish activity. So it was flourishing, prospering culturally and in every other way, too. And that's why, when a few days after the Germans arrived in the last week of June, the shock actually, of the hatred that the Jewish community felt was traumatic. There's an extraordinary massacre in a car park of the Agricultural Union in which something like between 50 and 70 Jews are beaten to death with iron bars. And the whole thing is photographed and filmed. This happens in broad daylight with spectators standing around. There was something. Hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of massacres occur in 1941, before Auschwitz is even thought about as a kind of death camp. Something like 1.5 million people were murdered by shooting the so called Holocaust bullets in the, that early stage. So the Germans have their answer. They, they have helpers galore right through the whole belt of Eastern Europe from the Baltic states right down to Crimea. So it's a terrible thing, but part of our mission was that we shouldn't flinch in front of these things actually. We shouldn't reduce them to simply numerical data.

Christiane Amanpour (44:13)

Yeah, yeah.

Hari Srinivasan (44:14)

There's this fascinating map that you have in the film which shows, you know, a dot where every one of these massacre. And in my head it made me kind of wonder what is it about human beings that we can set aside our humanity to no longer see that person who used to walk the streets with you yesterday as worthy of life anymore? I mean, there's, there's a scene you mentioned with the, I think it's footage from a historian who had interviewed one of the survivors of that area. She's wearing a tooth from a body.

Simon Sharma (44:45)

Yes, yes. Well, actually the woman says she's asked by the interviewer was people living or dead when you, when, when you've got the tooth. And she says with this extraordinary almost no make expression. Oh, they're very much alive. I think the majority of people were dead. The answer to your very important question, Harry, and you know, this is what one meditates darkly on in any kind of encounter with the Holocaust. What is it about us really that can do that? But one of our survivor who we interview at the very end, just before he died. Wonderful. Marianne Tursky says very profoundly, Auschwitz did not fall from the sky.

Siruz Nasseri (45:24)

Auschwitz did not fall from the sky. It comes step by step. Evil comes step by step. And therefore you shouldn't be indifferent.

Christiane Amanpour (45:41)

Let's start with reducing hatred and trying.

Siruz Nasseri (45:48)

To, to understand other people.

Simon Sharma (45:53)

It takes hundreds of years of utter dehumanization to make people suddenly, you know, realize, well, they're not really humans at all. They might be living among us, they might have businesses like we do. You know, they might seem like the rest of us, but truly they really aren't. You know, in the case of the Jews, Jews were thought of from the Middle Ages as carrying infectious diseases, for example, as kind of literally pedestrian vermin. So that when the Nazis many hundreds of years later say, well, this is really the case of pest extermination, people were already primed by generations of unspeakable hatred, racist memories to do that. It still is, you know, that's the sort of intellectual explanation. Emotionally for me, after all this, after all this research, after this, it still doesn't quite compute because the better part of ourselves doesn't want to make it compute, but it unfortunately does.

Hari Srinivasan (46:56)

One of the things that's fascinating about your film is in the Netherlands. I think not until your film did I see the sort of scale of the bureaucracy. You called it Holocaust with gloves on. What was happening there?

Simon Sharma (47:07)

The most painful thing, and a lot of my life has been spent in researching Dutch history is that the Netherlands, the Dutch Republic as it had been, was the most tolerant, hospitable place for Jews to live in Europe between the early 17th century and until the Holocaust arrived. So particularly upsetting to realize that the Netherlands had the highest rate of massacre and extermination in all of Western Europe. I think sort of the dumbfounding thing is that then an entire world of Dutch Jews, more than 100,000, could be made to disappear with institutional passiveness. You know, Eastern Europe and Auschwitz seems like the Holocaust. But the Holocaust can also come with gloves on. With gloves on until they're taken off. And that's as horrifying in its own way. So when you tackle that and when you look at it, you see two things. You see the genuine sense among the Dutch, especially in Amsterdam, of solidarity and brotherhood. In the first year of the German occupation, there are all kinds of signs of sympathy and resistance. When Jews were forced to wear a yellow star, people, this is not just hearsay. People doff their hat in the street. Most remarkably, there was a massive general strike against deportations that took place in February of 1941. After that, two things happen. The Germans hit very, very hard. Execute anyone they take to be responsible for the protests. They replace the regular police with people they can trust who are essentially Dutch Nazis. But the other thing is they create a kind of bureaucratic apparatus. It's not like Warsaw, it's not like Ukraine, it's not like Lithuania where people are beaten to pulp in broad daylight and carted off into cattle cars. I mean the Dutch do get carted off in the cat. But the first thing is a system of information, of identity cards. There was something you'll recall from a film called the Dot Map which showed exactly where a group of 10 Jews were living. And Amsterdam was such an assimilated and integrated city that this wasn't just in the so called Jewish Quarter, it was all over the city. And when that information is collected, the second in command of the occupation tells his superior, we now have the Jews in the bag. So the Nazis were very nimble in a way. They could go for full on slaughter and terror. Or they could rely not on barbaric collaborators in broad daylight massacre, but on bureaucratic indifference. The institutions, people who did not want to put their head above the parapet, who felt indeed they were just doing their administrative work in registering Jews, which was essentially an accessory to their slaughter.

Hari Srinivasan (50:13)

This also seems to be a film that is a tribute to historians. I mean, from Lithuania to Warsaw, you really go out of your way to show the level of risk that the historians had put in the time of the Holocaust to archive this, but then also to try to preserve this material and to be able to present it for us.

Simon Sharma (50:39)

Yes, that's kind of exactly right. If I had one brief to myself, apart from showing aspects of the Holocaust that people were much less familiar with than Auschwitz, it was to kind of honor their sense that they were memory keepers. So many of them, actually, particularly when they resign themselves to the fact it was very unlikely that they would survive. And very few of them did. Said over and over again, we want what we are doing. We want our record, our witness, our testimony, our evidence to survive. In the case of the wonderful Warsaw group called Oneg Shabbat 1 the Joy of the Sabbath, led by an historian with whom, you know, for whom I have professional reverence, and a man called Emanuel Ringelblum, they hid their archive in milk churns and steel cases and buried them under, under a school. And they were so obsessed with the survival of these documents that only a tiny number of this group of 60 people knew at any moment the location of where those records were, lest they be tortured by the Gestapo and forced to reveal it.

Hari Srinivasan (51:57)

I want to ask how much of our collective, I guess, fading memory is because of the sort of general recency bias that we have. And you kind of just have this tendency maybe to assume, oh, this is history, this isn't today, this couldn't happen now. But, you know, I don't know. I mean, have we let our defenses down?

Simon Sharma (52:20)

Yeah, I think. Well, I think we're in terrible jeopardy because of short attention span, because of the kind of cult of the immediate, if you think about Instagram and Snapchat. But the young, you know, seduced and fixated by the. By impatience. Impatience is exciting. Then bring the next thing on. Bring the next moment on. This old stuff in, you know, faded colors, as you say, in black and white, could be as remote as, you know, the Egyptians at the time of the pyramids or something. But that's not how. That's why, you know, historians struggle as we might continue to persist with the notion that the past lives amongst us, it never really goes away. We are the sum of our pasts as well as the hope for breaking free of them in some case and having a better future. But what the past tells us is not a kind of it's not like antique collecting. It's an insurance policy against making the same horrible mistake all over again. And in the case of the Holocaust, the many ways in which evil and catastrophe can pounce on you, from the liberation of horrific violence to this sinister, step by step, sneaky approach, gradual degradation into utter ruin that can happen at any time and in any place.

Hari Srinivasan (53:58)

The film is called Holocaust 80 years on. Simon Shama, thanks so much.

Simon Sharma (54:03)

Thank you very much.

Christiane Amanpour (54:05)

And that's our program for tonight. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you can always catch us online on our website and all over social media. Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.

Hari Srinivasan (54:26)

News fatigue.

Simon Sharma (54:27)

Have I Got News for you? Is the cure and also the disease. CNN's Comedy Quiz show is back, making.

Christiane Amanpour (54:33)

Sense of the mayhem and definitely adding to it.

Siruz Nasseri (54:36)

Have I GOT News for you.

Maura Healey (54:37)

Return Saturday, September 6th on CNN.