Return to Transcripts main page
The Amanpour Hour
Interview With Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore; Interview With "Waiting For Godot" Actor Keanu Reeves; Interview With "Waiting for Godot" Actor Alex Winter; Aftermath Of Settler Rampage In West Bank; Interview With Sino Founder Polina Sychova; Interview With Sino Head Chef Eugene Korolev; Remembering Selma Van De Perre; "PRIME MINISTER": Leading With Compassion. Aired 11a-12p ET
Aired November 15, 2025 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:00:44]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello everyone. And welcome to THE AMANPOUR HOUR.
Here's where we're headed this week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: From the COP summit in Brazil, the former U.S. vice president and Nobel Laureate Al Gore on U.S. climate leadership, that Bill Gates 180, and what he thinks of the trouncing Democrats just gave Trump at the latest elections.
AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, people are going to the grocery store and look at the prices, they believe their eyes rather than the falsehoods that Donald Trump continues to put out.
AMANPOUR: Then front row at one of Broadway's most hyped and most expensive shows.
ALEX WINTER, ACTOR: Ceremonious ape.
KEANU REEVES, ACTOR: Punctilious pig.
WINTER: Finish a phrase I tell you.
REEVES: Finish your own.
WINTER: Moron.
REEVES: That's the idea. Let's abuse each other.
AMANPOUR: Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter tell me why they are reuniting to wait for Godot.
Plus, the devastating attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. We have a special report. Also ahead, a taste of Ukrainian independence via the kitchen as we
visit the new London restaurant whose head chef wrote recipes as he was fighting on his country's front lines.
And remembering Selma Van De Perre from my archive. My conversation with the Dutch Holocaust survivor and resistance fighter. How she fought through her fears and never gave up against the Nazis.
SELMA VAN DE PERRE, DUTCH HOLOCAUSE SURVIVOR: I didn't want the Germans to have the satisfaction of killing me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
This week, indigenous protesters against deforestation made their voices heard in Belem, Brazil which was the site of the U.N.'s major climate summit.
Dozens of demonstrators forced their way into the COP30 venue, clashing with security guards and carrying signs and shouting that their land is not for sale.
It's a signal of something we know. Tackling climate change and protecting the planet is an enormous emotional and logistical challenge. And what it requires is real leadership.
But the world's most powerful people are no shows. Presidents Trump and Xi weren't there. Neither was India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi. All of them big, in fact, the major polluters. And the White House is doubling down on fossil fuels.
One well-known American though trying to fill that leadership gap is the former U.S. vice president Al Gore. One of the earliest politicians to sound the alarm on climate change, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in part for his prescient documentary "An Inconvenient Truth".
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Vice President Al Gore, welcome to our program.
GORE: Thank you very much, Christiane. I'm happy to be with you.
AMANPOUR: What does it feel like to be the only vice president, the only member of an American administration, even if it's past, at the COP talks?
Because this administration didn't send anybody, not the president, not the vice president, not even a technical team.
GORE: Well, it's disappointing, of course, that the present administration has turned its back on the climate crisis. During his campaign, Donald Trump famously gathered a whole room full of fossil fuel executives and said, basically, give me a billion dollars and I'll do whatever you want.
And he is following through on that and even doing some things that go far beyond what they want.
AMANPOUR: So, can I ask you sort of the big picture? Are you optimistic or neutral or pessimistic?
Is there a path forward that you can see?
GORE: Oh, yes, very definitely. There's a very promising path forward. And I think we are going to win this struggle. The question is whether we'll win it in time. We're in danger of crossing some very dangerous negative tipping points.
But let me give you some examples briefly. You know, some people are surprised when you ask the question, how much of all the new electricity generation installed everywhere in the world last year, how much of it was renewable -- solar and wind? The answer is 93 percent.
[11:04:51]
GORE: And electric vehicles are fast following as a second big trend. In September, 30 percent of all the new cars sold in the world were electric vehicles. And that is ramping up so quickly.
He did it before. The last time he withdrew from the Paris Agreement, following that, solar doubled in the U.S., electric vehicles doubled in the U.S., climate finance increased dramatically.
But we need to accelerate the pace in order to minimize the huge dangers that we're encountering as we continue to put 175 million tons of global warming pollution into the sky.
AMANPOUR: But I want to ask you, when even people like Bill Gates, who's put his money where his mouth is for decades, you know, on health and on climate, puts out a memo about COP30, quote, "Is a chance to refocus on the metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change. That's improving lives."
He said, climate change is a serious problem, but it won't be the end of civilization. Temperature is not the best way to measure our progress on climate.
What's your response to that?
GORE: Well, yes, it was disappointing. And to some, it was surprising. The only person who gave Bill Gates a rave review for his about face on climate was Donald Trump. He cheered loudly and said Gates is on Donald Trump's side.
Now, it's also quite telling, Christiane, that when Gates says we have to choose between climate and health, that the same day that he said that, the highly respected Lancet Commission, the most authoritative body in the world on health, pointed out that this is the biggest health threat. So, they're a very misguided and puzzling in some ways. And I don't
know. He didn't respond to the rave review from Donald Trump. So, I guess maybe that's what he was shooting for.
AMANPOUR: I remember first meeting you, first interviewing you when you represented the Senate delegation at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, just before you were tapped to be vice president.
And I know all those calls were coming through to you, but you wouldn't answer any of my very pointed questions. But here's what you did tell me about American leadership on this issue. Just take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GORE: I believe deeply that the United States must be in a leadership position in this post-Cold War era.
And all of this mishandling of our country's relationship to the rest of the world here at the Earth Summit by the White House with its divisions, all of that has hurt our country's ability to be a leader on these important issues.
And we should be, we have the record as a country to do it if we just stop backtracking on environmental protection.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: You were really prescient. That bit stands the test of time. But, you know, so the question is, if America -- well, you rate America where it is in terms of leadership right now, because for all I know, the Chinese are accelerating way beyond America on the green technology.
GORE: Yes, and it's tragic that Donald Trump and his fossil fuel polluter allies are shooting America in both feet metaphorically where the economy is concerned.
You know, here's a new statistic that's just out, Christiane. China is now exporting to other countries more green technology like electric vehicles and windmills and solar.
The value of their green tech exports now far exceeds the exports from the United States to the rest of the world of all of the fossil fuels, all of the coal and gas and oil.
And we're seeing this transition away from fossil fuels and toward a renewable energy and electric vehicles and batteries and these exciting new technologies that are pollution free. They create three times as many jobs per dollar spent compared to the old dirty fossil fuels.
And that's where the economic future is. And it's aligned with the future we have to build for a clean environment.
AMANPOUR: You talked about the economy. And clearly, it was the economy that motivated voters in the latest off-year elections just last week and brought a very different message to the fore, which is we want change.
How significant and strategically important do you think these elections like Mamdani's win or the two governors in New Jersey and Virginia and Gavin Newsom in California -- these were big wins with heavy margins for the Democrats?
[11:09:47]
GORE: Yes, it was a surprisingly huge landslide against all of the candidates Donald Trump was for and in favor of all the candidates that oppose what Donald Trump is trying to do.
He hasn't solved inflation. He seems to think that he can take charge of the reality that we see with our own eyes.
He says, up is down, black is white, the climate crisis is a hoax. And I think people in the elections last week sent a very powerful message.
What it means for the midterm congressional elections next year remains to be seen. But I will say this, in the past, when the off- year elections for governor in Virginia and New Jersey went one way, the congressional elections the following year went that same way.
AMANPOUR: All right. Vice President Al Gore from Belem, thank you so much indeed for joining us.
GORE: Thank you, Christiane. Thanks for all that you do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Coming up next, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter back together on Broadway. I talked to them about "Waiting for Godot" and finding meaning in the meaningless.
And later in the program, the Ukrainian restaurant taking aim with soft power. The head chef who found inspiration while fighting on the front lines.
[11:11:09]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.
It's the play where nothing happens twice, as the saying goes. But for more than 70 years, "Waiting for Godot" has held up a mirror to the absurdities of life, politics and power.
Now, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, yes, Bill and Ted, to those who know, are bringing Samuel Beckett's existential masterpiece to Broadway. In a stark new production, two men wait for meaning in a world that offers none.
I asked Reeves and Winter why now? It's an existential question.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program.
REEVES: Hello.
WINTER: Hello. Thank you for having us.
AMANPOUR: It's a great pleasure.
For someone who's never seen how would you describe this play?
WINTER: I mean, it is a play about two very close and old friends who are trapped in an indeterminate location in an indeterminate time who are trying to find a reason to live and survive.
And it's a play that interrogates sort of the questions of meaning and life and spirituality and friendship and many, many other things.
REEVES: And it's a comedy.
WINTER: And it's a tragedy.
REEVES: It's a tragic comedy.
WINTER: It is indeed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WINTER: You must have had a vision?
REEVES: What?
WINTER: You must have had a vision?
REEVES: No need to shout. Do you?
WINTER: Do you? Oh pardon.
REEVES: Carry on.
WINTER: No, no, after you.
REEVES: No, no, you first.
WINTER: I interrupted you.
REEVES: On the contrary.
WINTER: Ceremonious ape.
REEVES: Punctilious pig.
WINTER: Finish your phrase, I tell you.
REEVES: Finish your own.
WINTER: Moron.
REEVES: That's the idea. Let's abuse each other.
WINTER: Moron.
REEVES: Vermin.
WINTER: Abortion.
REEVES: Morphine.
WINTER: Sewer rat.
REEVES: Curate.
WINTER: Cretin.
REEVES: Critic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Well, it's all getting big laughs from the audience. But what does the scene tell us about your relationship? Well, at least the relationship between Vladimir and Estragon. Who are they to each other?
REEVES: Well, there's love, companionship.
WINTER: History.
REEVES: History.
WINTER: And, you know, sense of surviving together and being together too long. Fear of mortality, I think. I'm afraid of your health and you're afraid of mine.
And, you know, we're refugees. I think it's sort of quite clear. We've -- the things that the text gives you is there is a refugee component to who we are in the world that we live in. We have performed together. That's in the text. And those --
REEVES: But I think you're a philosopher and I'm kind of nature. You know what I mean? Like being in philosophy. I think that there's a kind of side --
WINTER: Yes.
REEVES: -- two sides of a coin of the way of being, The points of view.
WINTER: Yes. You're rooted to the earth and my head is sort of up there.
REEVES: Yes. WINTER: Yes. Literally.
AMANPOUR: We have a nice big shot of your -- you know, the theater. In fact, we're looking at right now. And behind you is that tunnel which was clear in the clip that we played, because you're in that tunnel.
I want to know what that represents, but I love this comment from one of the critics.
It was as if you were circling the drain of life waiting for a fatal flush, that's "Waiting for Godot" and Vladimir and Estragon.
So, I just found that really visual. But tell me about the stage --
REEVES: I guess they didn't like the play.
AMANPOUR: No, they said a lot of other good things. I just thought it was very descriptive. But what about that tunnel?
REEVES: I mean, we love -- I mean, I guess there's the practical side of performing in it, but I think also just the symbolic prompt, this symbolic invitation of trying to -- you know, you were speaking about the creative pause, you know, the -- you know, and sharing that idea and the quote of that, but the pause of like contemplating what is it. How does it -- what does it mean to you, how does it affect -- what does it make you think of -- one think of, you know.
WINTER: Yes. Yes, it creates ambiguity, but for an actor it actually creates specific parameters that are quite constrained.
[11:19:50]
WINTER: and those are useful because these are -- these are two characters who are trapped in time, they're trapped with each other, they're trapped with their thoughts and the audience is trapped. And it creates a kind of a literal trap.
REEVES: And foci, right?
WINTER: Yes.
REEVES: It made us be very specific --
WINTER: Yes.
REEVES: -- in a way.
WINTER: And it's also a stage which Jamie is leaning into and it also looks somewhat like a vaudeville clamshell. And there we are with the bowler hats and we play air guitar and we're two characters who have done physical comedy together just as the characters in the play have.
And there's a kind of a vaudeville proscenium aspect to it as well. So, it's a very clever design. I'm very taken by what they came up with. AMANPOUR: So, you just mentioned air guitar, that's, I assume, a deliberate reference back to -- back to "Bill and Ted". I don't know. How did that come up? Does the audience recognize it?
WINTER: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, they recognized it.
AMANPOUR: I mean, hugely popular.
But listen, I want to ask you something, because you've twice said, Alex, that this is about refugees. You are refugees. And as you know, certainly in your country and certainly in -- you know, in the West right now, refugees are demonized. They're -- you know, deported, they're shut out.
And I just wondered how that resonates with you today, performing this in New York right now.
WINTER: You know, Keanu and I have talked about this quite a bit. And we've talked to a lot of people who have seen the play or produced the play at times of great strife or civic unrest or war.
And we're very happy that this play doesn't specifically kind of bracket the times that we're in, which we feel would diminish the scope of the play.
But of course, it speaks to autocracy and fascism and state violence and surveillance. I mean, this stuff is in the text. So, you can't not feel it.
And I think whenever the play is put on, especially when the times are fraught, which -- and let's face it, most times are fraught for someone, it's going to be felt quite deeply in that way.
And so, of course, we feel that. Of course, we do.
REEVES: We've lost our rights.
WINTER: We got rid of them. It's right there in the text.
AMANPOUR: I was in Sarajevo in '93 when Susan Sontag put on "Waiting for Godot" in Sarajevo, under siege by the Bosnian Serb forces. And she said then it was her way of pitching in or doing something tangible.
Do you feel at all like that in doing this now, Keanu? I don't know. Is there something -- it's such a famous play and it has so much meaning, even though it's kind of meaningless.
REEVES: Myself and Alex and Michael Patrick Thornton and Brandon Dearden, the four of us -- Vladimir, Estragon, Lucky, Pozzo -- we huddle up before each performance. And often part of that huddling up is speaking about the audience and the reactions that each of us are getting individually from people, friends, family, from strangers about their experience of watching the play.
And, you know, it's -- I was crying. I was laughing. I don't know what's going on. It's --
WINTER: I've seen the play four times and I get something different from it every time I see it. Yes.
REEVES: And so, this kind of feedback is worthwhile. It's why -- and we speak about why are we here? What are we doing? And the relationship between the play, us performing it and the audience. And there seems to be a wonderful exchange.
AMANPOUR: Wish we could talk more. Congratulations to both of you. Keanu Reeves, Alex Winters, thank you so much for joining us.
REEVES: Thank you.
WINTER: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: In a moment -- the rising settler violence against Palestinians where there's no cease fire on the Occupied West Bank, torching their villages and wrecking their livelihoods.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: What confidence do you have that this won't happen again?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no confidence. It's not -- we hope that it doesn't happen again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[11:24:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back.
In the Occupied West Bank, the olive harvest is more than a season. It's an economic lifeline for Palestinians and a historic ritual deeply rooted in culture and tradition.
But this year, for many of their families, it's marred by violence and loss. Palestinian olive pickers have faced hundreds of attacks by Israeli settlers in the last month, and now outrage is growing after an arson attack on a mosque there condemned by the Palestinian ministry of religious affairs as a heinous crime.
CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports on the violence, which has kept up a pace while all eyes have been on Gaza.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DIAMOND: This is the aftermath of an attack by Israeli settlers. We're here in the Occupied West Bank where dozens of Israeli settlers stormed this dairy distribution facility, setting several trucks on fire.
You can see this is one of those trucks that was set on fire by those Israeli settlers. It is completely burned down to its core here.
We're told that dozens of Israeli settlers descended on this facility in the northern part of the Occupied West Bank.
[11:29:50]
DIAMOND: They came through this gate right over here, and coming over the walls of several other parts of this facility. All of these settlers were masked. Some of them were carrying clubs.
I spoke with the owner of this facility, and he made very clear that he believes this was an effort to intimidate him and other Palestinians from expanding their businesses in the West Bank.
MONJED AJUNEIDI, EXECUTIVE, AL JUNEIDI DAIRY & FOOD PRODUCTS COMPANY: I think it's just a message to scare -- to scare us, to scare our employees to not start -- to not come and to try to enforce their reality on the ground.
DIAMOND: What confidence do you have that this won't happen again?
AJUNEIDI: It's not confidence. It's not confidence. We hope that it doesn't happen again. We're taking more measures, but we don't know. There's no guarantees.
DIAMOND: Those settlers also descended on this Bedouin community right near that factory. And you can see that they also rampaged this area as well, setting fire to this place where the livestock feed was held, and also terrorizing women and children who were in the home just up the hill.
This is a part of a trend of a very violent month of October. The United Nations has tracked more than 264 attacks by settlers against Palestinians just this month alone. And that is the highest number of attacks that they've tracked since they began following these numbers in 2006.
Those settlers not only rampaged along this village, they actually beat several sheep here, killing four of them.
And after that, we understand that several men went up this hill to try and get those sheep back to this village, and that is where those settlers then beat at least four Palestinians who had to go to the hospital for medical treatment.
And this speaks to a growing problem of impunity for these settlers. It seems things are now reaching a point of saturation where even Israeli officials, who typically stay silent on matters of settler violence are now also speaking out.
Jeremy Diamond, CNN -- Bayt Lid, the West Bank.
(END VIDEOTAPE) AMANPOUR: Now, after a break, a trip to one of London's hottest new restaurants whose chef thought up new recipes while on Ukraine's frontlines.
[11:32:14]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back.
This week, Russia made serious gains inside Ukraine, pushing towards the key Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk and leaving Ukrainians in the cold and dark by constant attacks on the energy infrastructure.
In our "Letter from London" this week, how one Ukrainian restaurant is fighting back plate by plate. Sino opened its doors earlier this year in the very fashionable London Notting Hill neighborhood. But it's origins couldn't be more humble. Its head chef, Eugene Korolev, found inspiration while serving on the battlefield.
It's an extraordinary story, and as chef Korolev and Sino's founder Polina Sychova told me, a demonstration of their homeland's soft power.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Polina and Eugene, welcome to our program. Thank you for having us at your restaurant.
What is it that you want to tell about Ukrainian food?
POLINA SYCHOVA, FOUNDER, SINO: What we want to brag is that idea of what Ukrainian food is. Because the world and, you know, even Ukrainian people, they have this perception that Ukrainian traditional food is the food that comes from Soviet Union, which we really want to move away from because Ukrainian food is actually food that has been, you know, cooking for centuries.
And there's history and it's actually sophisticated. It's elegant, it's layered. It's much more than, you know, what we know about.
AMANPOUR: So, your story is actually really interesting because you were a chef. You worked outside Ukraine for a while. Then you went back to Ukraine and you had a restaurant in Dnipro, correct?
What was that like and what happened when the war started? How did your restaurant get transformed? And then you yourself went to the front.
KOROLEV: Yes, we just opened the restaurant in December 2021. So, three months before the war was started. And yet, from day one, I decided to join the army and we decided to transform the restaurant and cook it for like, for army, for hospitals, for National Guard, because at that moment, the country was really like united and people was like really -- like wanted to show how strong they are in every aspect. AMANPOUR: How did you meet Eugene? Did you know the restaurant in Dnipro?
SYCHOVA: No, no. So, when the war had started, that's when the idea of restaurant came to my mind. And that's --
AMANPOUR: Why? That's a weird time to think about starting a restaurant.
SYCHOVA: So, actually, you know, the night when the war started, I actually just had my first baby. And I'm never going to forget that night when, you know, when you're sitting and feeding the baby and it all just went upside down.
And that's when I think as every Ukrainian at that time. You have this -- I wouldn't say mission, but a feeling of doing something. You have to somehow save (ph) for it there.
[11:39:47]
SYCHOVA: And I've always been involved in some way with Ukraine, even whilst, you know, I lived almost like 15 years here. So, but somehow my life always touched Ukraine.
And that's where this idea I've started thinking, you know, there must be a way. And I'm a very passionate foodie. And back in the day, there wasn't a thing as Ukrainian restaurants in London, you know. And even the understanding of what Ukrainian food is, everyone would put it in a basket of Eastern European food.
AMANPOUR: So, you were, in the meantime, on the front lines. That must have been pretty scary. And yet, I've read about how you were lying in trenches and you would pick a little bit of a herb and do a little tasting, you know, when you weren't firing weapons or doing defensive maneuvers.
KOROLEV: And the life on the front line. I mean, sometimes when you're just, like, lying on a position or, like, holding position and you just keep watching something.
Anyway, it's like kind of life and we're not, like, stopping our life there. So, of course, we're joking. We're talking about something.
And yes, there was one thing, like, what I was supposed to talk about if I'm chef. So, I will tell everything, like, my funny stories from the kitchen. What's, like, how looks these herbs or how they taste like or what's the combination with it.
So, there was, like, normal life behind what's going on, yes.
AMANPOUR: When you think of what's happening back home now, what are your feelings, nearly four years, the war?
SYCHOVA: Well, you know, you look at Ukraine, people adapt. People still live. People keep going. And that's partly very scary because, you know, we as human beings adapt to the most terrifying things. And partly it gives us the power. You know, we see how strong Ukrainians are and what they do even within, you know, those quiet, scary times.
So yes, of course, we want this terrifying moment to be as over as possible, as soon as possible. However, we also see a power in what's happening right now.
AMANPOUR: And Eugene, what do you think about the way the war is going right now?
KOROLEV: Well, we still have a lot of friends there and family. And, of course, sometimes you are thinking, am I doing right or should I, like, do something other? I mean, come back to Ukraine.
And then we -- as Polina said, I think we took this mission to show not only Ukrainian cuisine on a high level and use it as a soft power, but we decided to support all, like, Ukrainian craft makers, suppliers.
So, everything what we can order, not from here, we are doing it from there. And I think yesterday was one of the small achievements for us.
AMANPOUR: What happened?
KOROLEV: Yes, there was news yesterday that we got to Michelin Guide.
AMANPOUR: You're in the Michelin Guide?
KOROLEV: Yes, yes.
AMANPOUR: Fantastic.
KOROLEV: And there was -- yes, we've been selected. So, now we are there. Not too many Ukrainian restaurants are there. There is one in Chicago called Amelia, and we are number two.
AMANPOUR: That's amazing. Congratulations.
And I wonder whether you think, as you're telling me this, as you know, Vladimir Putin and the Russians say Ukraine doesn't exist, that it's just a sub-plot of Mother Russia. So, that's a victory.
KOROLEV: That's what we are trying to say with the cuisine, with what we are doing here. There is a lot of things about Ukraine, about designers, about craft makers, and the world, I think, didn't recognize it yet, how beautiful things we can do in Ukraine, how beautiful food we can cook here in Sino.
And, yes, there is a lot of stuff like this. And this is one of the ways how we can destroy Russia propaganda, and show them and tell them, look, you are not what you are telling about, and we are much, much stronger, and we'll show you, and we'll -- yes.
AMANPOUR: That's the Ukrainian fighting spirit that we've got used to. Eugene, Polina -- thank you so much indeed. KOROLEV: Thank you.
SYCHOVA: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: It is a war for the very survival of a nation from a neighbor that wants to destroy it.
And up next, we remember a Holocaust survivor and Dutch resistance fighter, Selma Van De Perre. No words for her courage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VAN DE PERRE: I've had some very horrible experiences there, too. But I survived. I wanted to. I didn't want the Germans to have the satisfaction of killing me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[11:44:41]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back.
This week across the world, nations have been remembering the fallen and those still serving, from Armistice Day here in the United Kingdom to Veterans Day in the United States.
So from my archive, we take time to remember a woman who risked her life in the fight against the murderous Nazi fascism.
The extraordinary Selma Van De Perre, a Jewish Dutch resistance legend. She survived the notorious women's concentration camp at Ravensbruck and she fought back.
[11:49:53]
AMANPOUR: She died recently at the grand old age of 103. But when she was just a sprightly 98, she told me why you cannot live in fear.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: I'm going to get to the prison in a moment. But, first, I'd like to ask you to read on page 76 in your book there the passage about fear, about how fear was everywhere, but you had to put it to the back of your mind.
VAN DE PERRE: Well, you forget -- yes, you forget about fear, because I was busy as well like, I was now. When you're busy, you're able to push the things away you don't need.
You can't live in constant fear. Even fear is something to which you become accustomed. Quite true. And the job, the resistance job becomes like any other job. Every day,
I did things that put my life at risk. I didn't allow the fear to overwhelm me. The desire to thwart the Nazis and help people in danger was stronger.
AMANPOUR: What was your experience in Ravensbruck?
VAN DE PERRE: Well, I have had some very horrible experiences there too. But I survived. I wanted to -- I didn't want the Germans to have the satisfaction of killing me, of having me dead. So, I did any -- everything to stay alive.
I was quite lucky, in a way, that I became the secretary of one of the chiefs in Siemens factory. I was -- I had to work in the Siemens factory.
AMANPOUR: The big Germany industrial --
VAN DE PERRE: Siemens.
(CROSSTALK)
VAN DE PERRE: Yes, which is now famous for all the kitchen stuff.
AMANPOUR: Yes. Yes. You said that, to survive, you had to maintain hope.
VAN DE PERRE: Yes. So, you tried to do your best to survive, which was difficult at some times. I was beaten once unconscious --
AMANPOUR: Wow.
VAN DE PERRE: -- when I couldn't get off the loo because my tummy was always upset, you see. And -- because the food and the drinks we got was terrible or hardly anything.
AMANPOUR: When you came out, you realized eventually that your mother had not survived, your father had not, and nor had your younger sister.
Two older brothers had, and they had come here to England. How did you reconcile? How did you process their loss?
VAN DE PERRE: Well, I haven't reconciled with that at all. I think of them every day, every night. Small things happen. And when I slice my bread in the morning for breakfast, and I half my slice of bread, I think of my mother when she buttered our bread. I can't help it. It comes into my mind.
I try not to, because I think -- I say to myself, it doesn't make any difference. You can't make it undone. But I can't help it. I think of them every day in that way.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: She lost so much, even her own identity. She had to hide who she really was and could only reclaim her identity and her very name when the war was over. Her book is called "My Name is Selma".
When we come back, she led with empathy and changed what power looks like at the top in New Zealand. An intimate look inside Jacinda Ardern's rise and legacy in a new film, "PRIME MINISTER".
[11:53:28]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: And finally, imagining a different kind of leadership. Jacinda Ardern led New Zealand through crisis with empathy and strength from the massacre at the Christchurch mosque to the pandemic. And she became a global symbol of compassionate leadership.
Following her across seven years, the acclaimed new documentary "PRIME MINISTER" takes an intimate look at her extraordinary political journey and the personal toll of power.
I spoke to her in 2018, just after she won that election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: What is the leadership rule book for you? Because people think that to be a prime minister, you have to be this way, this way, this way.
But are you trying to open up the leadership rule book? And if so, how?
JACINDA ARDERN, FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF NEW ZEALAND: I do think it's time for us to reconsider whether or not we're meeting the expectations of the public, and their expectations, particularly of that new generation of voters.
You know, they are less hierarchical. They're collaborative. They're wanting us to be constructive. And yet, probably the old playbook when it comes to politics is that, you know, you succeed if you're seen as pretty ruthless. There's a lot of ego in politics.
Measures of success are pretty basic. They're mostly aligned with economic markers. You know, I am determined to do things differently. I do think you can be both strong and compassionate.
I do think success is not just about economic, but about your social indicators of success.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Ardern did do things differently up until her resignation in 2023, saying, quote, "Leading a country is the most privileged job anyone could ever have but also the most challenging."
[11:59:50]
AMANPOUR: "You cannot and should not do that job unless you have a full tank. I no longer have enough in the tank to do the job justice." And "PRIME MINISTER" premiers tomorrow, Sunday, November 16th at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific on CNN, and the next day on the CNN app.
That is all we have time for now, though. Don't forget you can find all of our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/audio and on all other major platforms.
I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching. And I'll see you again next week.
