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The Amanpour Hour

Interview With Channel 12 Israel Anchor Ilana Dayan; Interview With Al Jazeera English Correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum; Interview With American Held In Iranian Prison For Eight Years Siamak Namazi; Interview With Actress Kate Winslet. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired October 05, 2024 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:40]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello everyone. And welcome to THE AMANPOUR HOUR.

Here's where were headed this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: One year since the October 7th attacks that transformed the Middle East and sparked a wider war, I speak to Israeli and Palestinian journalists Ilana Dayan and Tareq Abu Azzoum about the deep wounds inflicted on their societies and how they're coping.

ILANA DAYAN, ANCHOR "UVDA", CHANNEL 12 ISRAEL: From the bottom of my soul, that we will not be able to heal if these hostages don't come back.

TAREQ ABU AZZOUM, AL JAZEERA ENGLISH CORRESPONDENT: That day has turned and changed the lives of millions of Palestinians now upside down.

AMANPOUR: Then.

SIAMAK NAMAZI, IMPRISONED BY IRAN FOR EIGHT YEARS: Well, my name is Siamak Namazi. And this call is being made from Ward Four of Evin prison in Tehran.

AMANPOUR: From there to here --

NAMAZI: I would say I do feel very free.

AMANPOUR: My exclusive interview with Siamak Namazi, the American prisoner once left behind in Iran's notorious Evin Prison liberated after eight years in that hell.

Plus Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet on channeling the legendary World War II photographer Lee Miller, the woman who blazed a trail for female reporters capturing the Holocaust and famously washing off those horrors in Hitler's bathtub.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.

A year ago this weekend, Hamas invaded Israel from Gaza in a land, sea and airborne wave of unspeakable brutality. It devastated the nation, shocked the world, and launched a 12-month Middle East war that is still expanding.

October 7 was the darkest day in Israeli history. 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were murdered in their homes, in their shelters, in their sleep, or while dancing at a music festival.

It was a massive failure of intelligence and military dominance. On the ground, soldiers were nowhere to be found and the terrorists rampage freely to commit atrocities including rape, sexual violence, and mutilation.

Also, 250 Israelis, men, women, and children, were taken hostage and still today, more than 100 of them remain in captivity, 60 are believed to be alive.

Israel's bubble of invincibility was shattered that day. But now after a year-long massive military campaign to root out Hamas in Gaza, decapitated Hezbollah, and wage war in Lebanon, Israeli is seizing back the initiative.

To understand the implications for Israeli society, I spoke to top journalist there Ilana Dayan about how people have coped with all that's happened and what her reporting since October 7 has revealed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Ilana Dayan, welcome back to our program.

DAYAN: Thank you for having me, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: I want to get to your observations about everything you've covered and everything you've experienced in the past year.

But first, what is the feeling amongst Israelis right now -- the military is back, the intelligence is back, all those things that were essentially demolished, the idea of Israel's prowess in those two key areas on October 7th. What does Israel want?

I mean, Benjamin Netanyahu is riding high, and the rock-bottom poll numbers he had after October 7th are increasing, and his majority in the Knesset is increasing.

DAYAN: What does Israel want? It depends on who you ask, of course. Yes, you're right. Netanyahu is riding high in the polls.

But if you ask Israelis, most Israelis think that we have to go to the ballots. Most Israelis think that we have to go for a hostage deal. Most Israelis would not have voted for this coalition. The thing is that they don't get to decide. The majority in the

Knesset gets to decide. But what it means is that the rift within Israeli society is ever deeper.

Many Israelis want this horror to be over. Many Israelis don't trust the government. And still many Israelis know that the wars that we are fighting these days are as just as a war can be.

So there you have it, it's complicated.

[11:04:51]

AMANPOUR: And it strikes me that this has been the demand of the Israeli people since October 7th. Above all, to get people back, to get their people back.

And it's fallen out of the headlines now. Nobody's talking about hostages, certainly the government and others.

And I wonder, where are people about this right now? Do they just look at the military successes of the last two weeks or is there still this gaping hole, this wound?

DAYAN: Many Israelis -- and I'll speak for myself now, I think this is one stain that we'll never bleach. If our government lets these hostages stay there and die there. And you know, we are -- we know they are being tortured, we know they are starving, we know at least half of these 101

hostages are still alive, and we know that -- to put it delicately, there were chances to strike a deal.

And now, as you said, the focus has shifted to the north. When will we talk about the hostages? And what will happen to our society if they don't come back?

There is a contract between Israelis and their government that somebody will be there to save us if anything happens to us. That's the defining ethos of the Israeli society.

And I know -- I know from the bottom of my soul that we will not be able to heal if these hostages don't come back.

AMANPOUR: I want to remind you of something you said to me on my program when I first spoke to you in the couple of weeks after October 7th, about the Hamas attacks. Just listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAYAN: I thought that I know something about our enemies. None of us, Christiane, none of us even imagined this is the kind of enemy that we are confronting.

This is part of trying to reckon what happened to us October 7th. So, much was broken. The fact that we always feel protected was broken. The sense that we know something about our enemy is broken. The sense of security, national security and personal security was broken. The sense that our military knows everything, they cannot be blinded.

(END VIDEO CLIP) AMANPOUR: And obviously, in the year since, you've seen the revenge. 41,000 plus Palestinians have been killed, including some 16,000 children. And I wonder whether that visual, that human toll on the other side is getting through to the Israeli people and what you all think about it now, a year after?

DAYAN: And I know that after October 7th came October 8th, and October the 28th. And this war has taken a terrible toll on civilians and also innocent civilians in Gaza. And I've been to Rafah a couple of months ago and I've seen the destruction. And I know that we reporters, Israeli media, are not covering enough.

On the other hand, Christiane, I have to tell you it's tricky. Because I figure that every time I cover October 7th -- or rather, every time I cover October 8th, the notion of the tragedy in Gaza that you're talking about, I carry October 7th with me.

I carry everything I saw, the bodies I saw, the atrocities I saw, the people I know, the second cousin of mine who was kidnapped at gunpoint, our political correspondent whose family, two parents and two kids, were executed at gunpoint. The grandmother was murdered with her autistic grandchild.

So, I carry the scars because it's so personally experienced. It is something which we all experienced so personally that I have to tell you that the sense of detachment that you have to have as a reporter is something very difficult to implement.

And yes, I think of the tragedy in Gaza and I think we don't cover it enough. You're right in that sense.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Coming up after the break, the Israeli offensive on Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians since October 7th, including many journalists. I speak to one who survived about the reality he's reporting inside Gaza.

[11:09:06]

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

And as we reflect on one year since Hamas launched that brutal attack on Israel it is a painful time for the people of Gaza. One year later, the Israeli airstrikes and ground operations have left the enclave in ruins. More than 41,000 have been killed, over 16,000 of them, completely innocent. They were just children.

Those who survived are now facing rampant disease, persistent hunger. Many of them displaced and living in squalor to say nothing of the trauma they face, the bullets, the bombs, the lost family members.

Over this past cheer, one harrowing acronym has now entered the Palestinian vernacular WCNSF, "wounded child, No Surviving Family".

And now as Israel launches attacks in Lebanon. Gaza has faded from the headlines but Israeli bombs continue to rain down there and people are still starving.

[11:14:45]

AMANPOUR: Nowhere near enough aid is getting in and no one understands this reality better than those who are on the ground.

Joining me from Gaza is Al Jazeera English journalist Tareq Abu Azzoum. He's in Deir al-Balah.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Tareq Abu Azzoum, welcome to the program. And I just want to note for our viewers that we've just gone from a pretty first world camera operation in Israel to a wartime under bombardment Skype. Pretty bad connection, and that's just the reality of what's going on right now.

So, can I ask you to reflect on what -- where were you on October 7th and October 8th when the war then came to you?

AZZOUM: Well, Christiane, thanks, first, for having me. When October the 7th really attack took place, we were in our homes in a very close border town with the Israeli borders. We were living peacefully and sleeping and we walk up on the sound of bombardments and attacks.

It was a very tough day for everyone in Palestine, simply because the -- that day has turned and changed the lives of millions of Palestinians now upside down.

Clearly, we were forced to leave our homes and houses under really heavy Israeli bombardment. We were forced to move from one neighborhood to another looking for some sort of safety.

We we're forced to leave the north of the Strip after following the Israeli military orders to no longer remain in the north of Gaza because it will be an active military war zone.

And for me, alongside my family members, we have been displaced for over five times since the war began and the situation was catastrophically very dire.

AMANPOUR: And Tareq, you're a journalist. Did you immediately leap into action to try to cover what was going on? Because, obviously we know that now at least 116 journalists have been killed in this counteroffensive, some of them are your Al Jazeera colleagues.

How -- tell me what it's been like as a journalist to live through this.

AZZOUM: Well, firstly, my first and top priority was how I can move my family to a place that could have some sense of partial safety. Then I just managed to be absolutely joining the field here in Gaza Strip to follow up every latest development on the ground and how the course of actions are ongoing in Gaza.

It has been a very tough job since day one because you are operating in a very active military zone that had been day by day getting much more worse with the very systematic and deliberate destruction of residential homes, key infrastructure, and the mounting numbers of attacks on journalists.

In Gaza, every day for Palestinian journalists is a question of life or death. Like you leave your house, you're completely unsure if you're going to return back to your family or not. And this is a proper reflection about the systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists.

We're talking about more than 160 Palestinian journalists were killed since the war began. Some of them were killed alongside with the family members and others as they were practicing their professions on the ground.

But the resilience and the determination of Palestinian journalists is completely unwavering.

AMANPOUR: You know, Tareq, we all owe you a huge debt of gratitude, because as you correctly say, you are the world's eyes and ears on the ground because internationals are not allowed in.

Would you -- would you want to have more of us in, or do you feel that you are fully able to tell the story? Do you think it would make any difference or impact if international journalists were allowed in?

AZZOUM: Well, the presence of international journalists is absolutely important in order to enable the viewers around the globe to have more access and reach what's happening in Gaza.

International journalists have been only given access to areas where the army exists, but they did not really get closer to Palestinians in hospitals, Palestinians in evacuation centers, those who are sleeping in open areas, in the corners of the streets who have lost their homes, and even there are jobless right now.

So, we believe that the international journalists have a very profound role in raising the awareness of the International community. But Palestinian journalists, they have done that job perfectly and bravely, and they are still ongoing with their reporting and coverage, despite all the security and humanitarian obstacles and challenges encountering them, in fact, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Can I just ask you a different question, and whether you've been able to take the pulse of people there on not just the Israeli offensive, but on Hamas as well.

And public dissent appears to be growing due to the human toll of this war, growing against Hamas.

[11:19:46]

AMANPOUR: How present is Hamas in Gaza right now? AZZOUM: Well, in order to make it much more clear for everyone that

who is distributing aid in Gaza, are the NGOs and alongside with the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian refugees.

And in terms of the military presence for Hamas, we cannot really have a very close look on their military activities because they have been engaged with the Israeli forces in combat and in a very close contact fighting, and we cannot have a proper access to these places.

It has been a year of massive confrontations, systematic destruction of the healthcare system alongside with all areas that Palestinians can find it as a refuge.

AMANPOUR: Tareq Abu Azzoum, thank you so much for being with us.

AZZOUM: Thank you. Christiane.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Coming up after the break surviving a different kind of hell.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAMAZI: When you get out of a dungeon after eight years you don't just return to a normal life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: After eight years in an Iranian prison, American Siamak Namazi is ready to speak about his ordeal.

[11:20:52]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program for some good news now.

It happened one year ago, and we wanted to dedicate at least part of this program to rare rays of hope and perseverance in these increasingly dark times.

And there is perhaps no brighter ray than Siamak Namazi, the longest held American in Iran, who lived through a horrifying 8-year-old ordeal in the notorious Evin prison, where he underwent solitary confinement and frequent bouts of psychological and physical torture.

Six months before his release, Namazi bravely called into this program from inside Evin to make this emotional plea to President Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAMAZI: President Biden, you and you alone have the power to deliver on the Obama administration's broken promise to my family.

I implore you sir, to put the lives and liberty of innocent Americans above all the politics involved and to just do what's necessary to end this nightmare and bring us home. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Since then, an extraordinary development, it worked. Six months after that interview, he was released. Iran and the United States struck a deal to bring him and four other Iranian Americans home.

And now for the first time, he's able to tell his story, a whole year later. In an exclusive interview in New York, he talked to me about that nightmare and how it feels to be free.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Siamak, welcome back to the program.

NAMAZI: Thank you very much.

AMANPOUR: The last time you talked to us was from Evin jail in March of 2023. And it took another several months for you to be free.

A year ago, you came back to the United States -- almost exactly a year ago. What's this year been like? How -- do you feel free?

NAMAZI: Well, Christiane, first of all, it is such a joy to be talking to you and not worrying about someone dragging me to a solitary cell somewhere because of it. So, thank you for that.

Do I feel free? I think the first -- the most dominant feeling that I have is gratitude. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to many people, particularly President Biden, who made a very difficult choice and struck the deal.

I'm sure it was a very difficult deal for him to strike that brought us home. It took many more years than I hoped that it would. I was there eight years.

AMANPOUR: The longest-held.

NAMAZI: The longest-held.

But the truth is, when you get out of a dungeon after eight years, you don't just return to a normal life. It's overly optimistic. You don't just kind of shake it off.

It's an eight-year earthquake that hits your life, and it leaves a lot of destruction.

But I would say I do feel very free in the U.S., and I tried to live the freest life I could even when I was in Evin.

AMANPOUR: You said that for the first couple of years, you were in solitary confinement for the most part. You were in the Revolutionary Guards' portion of the prison, which was --

NAMAZI: Twenty-seven months. AMANPOUR: -- 27 months -- which was really hard.

NAMAZI: Yes.

AMANPOUR: You said they basically fed you like a dog under the door, that you were beaten up.

Can you tell us more now that you couldn't tell us back then of how they treated you for those two years?

NAMAZI: I referred to it, I think, as unutterable indignities.

Look, when I was first taken in and thrown in a solitary cell -- and anyone who has not experienced that won't understand what I'm saying. I'm talking about something the size of a closet, three paces -- and I'm not a big guy -- three of my paces isn't that great -- and walled off. It's a very difficult thing.

By Iranian law, that alone, by Iranian law, that is defined as torture to throw someone in there.

I was thrown in. My interrogators told me that day that, look, unless you cooperate -- the word "cooperate", I'm definitely, in Farsi, allergic to that, which means unless you do whatever we ask you to, you are going to be here until your teeth and your hair are the same color, and our methodology of how we're talking is going to change.

They were clear about that. I didn't believe that.

AMANPOUR: There was a threat of violence.

[11:29:50]

NAMAZI: Yes. In the solitary cell, I started assessing my situation, and I started developing a strategy. And I developed some idea of where I am.

I looked at the scratches that the prisoners leave on the wall. The least that I saw was about three. The most that I saw was 32.

The cluster, the mode kind of -- that's the geeky MBA side of me -- was around two weeks.

So, I figured, OK, I'm probably going to be in this situation for two weeks, most a month, and then they're going to take me to a less horrible room. I was in that room for two months. And then, overall, about eight months of solitary confinement.

AMANPOUR: So you thought two weeks, but you were eight months all in all?

NAMAZI: Of solitary confinement, yes.

I assumed that, because I'm a hostage and I have value, they will not harm me. Unfortunately, that assumption was proven wrong. And --

AMANPOUR: What did they do?

NAMAZI: You know, I got to tell you that the physical part of what they do isn't -- it's not like they're pulling your nail, but they -- you're blindfolded.

And, unfortunately, the thugs are as bad at their job as everyone else in that rotten system. I believe they don't mean to harm you as much as they do. But they don't understand simple things like, when you toss a person who is blindfolded, I won't -- I don't know that's a wall in front of me, and I'm going to go face first into it. Or I don't know there's a staircase, and I'm going to go rolling down.

So I was --

AMANPOUR: Did that happen?

NAMAZI: I did, yes. Both of those things happened.

There were -- that part still, you could endure, but not day after day after day nonstop. There was a lot of humiliation. That, I'm not comfortable talking about. And I mean unutterable, because it had a profound effect on me.

It's just -- I still haven't even gotten to talking about it fully in therapy.

It's just -- they humiliate you. And they always do this while you're blindfolded, you know. They -- it's that -- they're that cowardly.

I saw my mom the first time after six weeks of solitary. This was right before they started beating me.

And the poor woman, the first time she saw me, she didn't recognize me. I looked like Saddam when they pulled him out of the hole. I had a long beard, and, I mean, at the distance we're standing.

I remember her eyes, you know, wandering, looking for me, and then she realized it's me, and I remember her sobbing.

They called me out and said, OK, you have a visit. It's seven minutes. They spent about 15 minutes threatening me about what would happen if I say anything but "Mom, I'm OK, the food is great, you know, everything's fantastic. People should holiday here."

They -- so, flanked by my interrogators, I entered the room. Even before sitting, I say: "Hi, mom. These guys have been torturing me. I need you to go public on this. I need you to."

I'm sorry. OK. I put her through a lot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: When we come back, we'll hear more of Siamak's harrowing experience in Iranian captivity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAMAZI: They have done things that I'm not able to tell myself, Christiane. And I can't even speak about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:33:09]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAMAZI: I just know I was abandoned. I know I was promised that the U.S. government will release me, Weeks later and it seems like, you know, three weeks is perpetually -- I'm perpetually three weeks away from a freedom that is fundamentally elusive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: The last time I spoke to Siamak Namazi, he called me to my program from Ward 4 of Evin Prison in Tehran, six months before his release. Back then, and as you just heard, he wasn't shy about who he believes left him behind.

When I sat down with him last week, he told me why he thinks successive U.S. governments failed to bring him home sooner.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Can we go back to the beginning a little bit. You are a businessman. You had family in Iran. You were visiting regularly and then once you went, you tried to come out and they grabbed you at the airport as you were leaving --

NAMAZI: Correct.

AMANPOUR: 2015.

NAMAZI: Yes.

AMANPOUR: Around the time of the negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal.

NAMAZI: Correct. I went to Iran for a funeral. And as you said at that point, it was the peak of Iran-U.S. relations when we had former Secretary Kerry and Iranian foreign minister Zarif walking around Vienna and on their way back, they first barred me from leaving the country.

I was approached by a man in a plain suit who said, you know, come with me. After that, I was interrogated off site illegally for three months, and then I was finally arrested.

I was charged formally with cooperating with a hostile state, referring to the United States of America.

AMANPOUR: And you are American.

NAMAZI: I am a dual citizen obviously I'm born in Iran and I'm American. But the key thing they said, the key statement was that when we arrested him, for three decades he had been building a network within Iran to infiltrate and topple the Islamic Republic with the cooperation of the hostile U.S. city.

[11:39:53]

NAMAZI: Now I was arrested at 44, so these guys are pretty much claiming that when I was learning to skateboard with my buddy Dave in White Plains, New York, I was actually subverting the Islamic Republic.

AMANPOUR: When you were like 12-years-old.

NAMAZI: 14, yes. Yes, it is.

AMANPOUR: And there's no doubt in your mind that they took you purely, as you told me when you called out of prison, for your blue passport, because you're an American, because you're a valuable pawn?

NAMAZI: They made it extremely clear repeatedly to me that you will not be released without a deal with the U.S.

AMANPOUR: You were left behind --

NAMAZI: My understanding is that the Trump administration was faced with a different choice, that the Iranians said, I want that guy and I'm willing to give this guy for him. And that happened twice. And they chose to make that decision.

AMANPOUR: Can I ask you? At this point, Trump himself, after you were released, and the deal involved unfreezing Iranian money that South Korea had given them for a reason.

It was Iranian money, not American dollars. Anyway, he's like, oh, this is appeasement. Others were saying this is appeasement, that, as you know, people have said, oh, you should never deal with the regime in any way, form or fashion. What is your answer to that?

NAMAZI: Christiane, I will answer that as a former hostage and tell you we have a duty to get out our people from foreign dungeons, when they have done nothing, and the only reason they're in there is because they carry a blue passport, and their only way out is through a deal. Unfortunately, we have to make distasteful deals to get out our people.

But I will tell you something. No one is as angry, no one is as disgusted as the fact -- at the fact that the Islamic Republic, that these -- this horrible regime profited from blighting my life and me and the other hostages and our families.

They took my father. They have done things that I'm not able to tell my therapist yet. And I still -- I can't even speak about it.

I am upset that they profited from this. But what other choice is there? Are you just going to let an American rot?

But we have two obligations, get our people out, even if it means holding our nose and doing these distasteful deals.

The second part is, we have to deter hostage-taking to begin with.

And I think, as grateful as I am -- and I can't -- I would really love to shake President Biden's hand one day. I really would.

As grateful as I am for this, I have a polarity of emotions going on. We have to do something to stop this. And we don't. There is zero. There is absolutely zero deterrence for hostage-taking. If you and I were advisers to one of these rogue states, we would say, this is a great business.

Hostage diplomacy is a game of rugby. We should stop treating it like chess.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And he believes that had the U.S.-Iran deal to release him not being struck just before October 7, he might still to this day be rotting in jail.

Coming up, Hollywood heavyweight Kate Winslet joins me about becoming the legendary American war photographer Lee Miller in her new film.

[11:43:29]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

Earlier you heard us talking about the incredible difficulties and exceptional danger the Palestinian journalists who are trapped in Gaza and yet trying to tell the world about what's going on.

We also told you that international journalists like us, are banned from being able to report independently there.

Now, we turn to a great World War II journalist whose story remains largely on untold 80 years later. Lee Miller courageously captured the horrors of World War II on her camera defining that era, despite major resistance simply because she was a woman.

Well now she's the one who's caught in the lens as the award-winning actress Kate Winslet plays this legend in the new film, "Lee".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATE WINSLET, ACTRESS: I'm with "Vogue Magazine".

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no women allowed in the press briefing.

WINSLET: You've got to be kidding me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't send women to combat.

WINSLET: Well, that's the problem, because I'm here.

Why should the men get to decide?

I'm heading to the front.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's not what I thought you were going to say.

WINSLET: Ready to go?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: And recently in New York, I talked to Winslet about the project. Here's that conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Kate Winslet, welcome to our program.

WINSLET: Thank you for having me.

AMANPOUR: It is wonderful, for me anyway, and for the general audience I'm sure, to see you playing one of the most illustrious war correspondents of the 20th century.

Let's sort of start a little bit at the beginning before the very famous picture of her in Hitler's bathtub.

[11:49:48]

AMANPOUR: She wanted to go cover the British war effort, and she wasn't allowed, right? She first was able to go to the women's -- the women's shelters in the U.K., right?

WINSLET: Yes, she was -- she was initially -- after she had decided that being a war correspondent for "British Vogue" in order to convey information to the female readers of "British Vogue". Ahe invented that job and initially she was, yes, she was given the task of going and photographing, as you say the women, the pilots ferrying bombers between bases and the Women's quarters at White (INAUDIBLE) et cetera, et cetera.

But she was absolutely determined to go to the front line and women were not allowed. They were not.

Lee was one of approximately four or five U.S. correspondents who did earn their accreditation to be able to go. But even that fight and even when she got there, as we see in the film, she's told no women in the press briefing.

I mean the outrage. And what I loved and still love and will forever love about Lee is that she led her life with intention and grace, integrity and resilience, redefining femininity already, 80 years ago in the way that we live now.

And this was a woman who not only knew that she had already earned her place at the table, but was determined to sit at the head of it.

AMANPOUR: And then she somehow became the first person to break the news of some of these concentration camps, notably Dachau. How did she even get there. I mean, she was barred from most of the front line.

How does she have the nerve, the knowledge to take that journey, which is depicted so eerily and accurately in the film.

WINSLET: She kept hearing rumors of something happening down south and she writes about that. And we include words to that effect in our film.

And she and Davy Sherman were always the first in the door at any scoop. And they arrived at Dachau not knowing really anything about what they were about to see but knowing that that's where all the millions of missing had allegedly been taken.

One of many places -- many, many places across Europe as, of course, we now know. So many millions of people had been taken to.

What had happened to them, of course, they were only about to discover.

AMANPOUR: Through her pictures.

WINSLET: Through her pictures.

AMANPOUR: At one point the most famous picture that basically the world knows about Lee Miller is frankly her in Hitler's bathtub.

Now for history's sake, tell us why she took that bath. It wasn't just a war trophy and Hitler was committing suicide or had just committed suicide in his bunker at that time.

WINSLET: Yes. So the events of that day are quite extraordinary. Lee and Davy Sherman had been in Dachau that morning. She again, following her nose had been aware of Hitler's Munich address for some years, a little bit like Number 10 Downing Street. People know where it is.

Lee and Davy had not washed or changed their clothes for six weeks and they certainly hadn't touched hot water. And that is a fact. That is a historical fact.

So it just doesn't surprise me that Lee would think, well, there's no one here, there's a lockable door. It's hot running water and I believe and Tony Penrose shares the same view that it wouldn't have been until she was in that bath that she realized, hang on a second. This might just be something I need to do --

AMANPOUR: To wash off the horror.

WINSLET: -- to wash off the dirt of Dachau and the horror and the evil in Hitler's bathtub. To stamp that mud into his girly lemon-yellow bathmat as she herself described it.

That's pure -- it's pure Lee. It just doesn't surprise me now, I know her as intimately as I do. I can absolutely see why she would do something like that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: When we come back, the people still fighting for peace in the Middle East. Why they believe reconciliation is the only answer.

[11:54:06]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And finally, this is an incredibly painful and violent time in the Middle East. The festering sore between Israel and Palestine feels even less treatable than ever.

But throughout this horrific year, there have been moments of reconciliation like between Robi Damelin and Bassam Aramin. One Israeli, one Palestinian -- both have lost children to this never- ending conflict.

And today we want to give them the last word.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBI DAMELIN, ISRAELI PEACE ACTIVIST: It is, of course, very frightening. And I think fear in many ways is what's creating this hatred.

But I don't see a time now to give up. This is a time where we have to stand up and do whatever we can to make the government have a ceasefire to bring back all the hostages.

[11:59:41]

BASSAM ARAMIN, SPOKESPERSON, THE PARENTS CIRCLE FAMILIES FORUM: It's our mission. It's the time, even the darkest times, to continue raising our voice for peace and reconciliation to save the children of Gaza, to save the children of Sderot, the civilians. They are both civilians.

They are both -- have nothing to do with the fighting. And they need to be in a safe place to live together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: And although their tragedies long preceded October 7th, they both prove how long people have been working across that divide for peace.

That's all we have time for. Don't forget. You can find all of our shows online as podcasts at cnn.com/podcast and on all other major platforms.

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching and I'll see you again next week.