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The Amanpour Hour

Interview With Oxford Professor Of Global History Peter Frankopan; Interview With Former Assistant Secretary Of Defense Celeste Wallander; Interview With Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa; Who Are Britain's "Pink Ladies"?; Interview With "The Traitors Circle" Author Jonathan Freedland; From Harlem To The North Pole And Back Again; Maria Corina Machado's Daring Journey To Oslo. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired December 13, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:46]

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

Here's where we're headed this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Europe will not be, in my opinion, many of those countries will not be viable countries any longer.

AMANPOUR: This week, the Trump administration has its sights set on Europe -- weak, decaying, its civilization about to be erased. What? I get the view from America with Celeste Wallander, formerly of the U.S. Defense Department, and from Europe with Oxford historian Peter Frankopan.

Then Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa one year after the fall of Assad. He's a friend of Trump and most world leaders. But can he unify his own people and rebuild the shattered nation? I speak to him exclusively.

Also ahead --

Is this a new look for Britain's far right? Jomana Karadsheh meets the Pink Ladies.

And then the men, women and countesses who did not fall into line. Author Jonathan Freedland reveals the hidden history of the millions of Germans who resisted the Nazis.

JONATHAN FREEDLAND, AUTHOR, "THE TRAITORS CIRCLE: They felt they could come together with kindred spirits, trading information, gossip even, but also know-how.

AMANPOUR: Plus, a festive season trip to the North Pole. From my archive, the Harlem man who went to the top of the world and came back again to inspire New York's schoolchildren.

DARRELL ROBERTS, TREKKED TO THE NORTH POLE: You can make your dreams come true if you dare to dream about those things you want to do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

And it's not been a pleasant week for Europe and its transatlantic relationship. The British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, met with the U.S. ambassador for a little chat after President Trump decided to say what he really thinks about his historic allies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think they're weak, but I also think that they want to be so politically correct. I think they don't know what to do. Europe doesn't know what to do. They don't know what to do on trade either.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Unusual. And this comes after last weekend's shocker, known as the Trump 2.0 national security strategy. It painted the continent on the brink of civilizational erasure. And it proposes that America should mount a resistance to the mainstream political parties running its allied nations.

It's definitely a radical departure from decades of bipartisan American consensus on the alliance. But what is it all about, really?

We sought some calm analysis from both sides of the pond. Celeste Wallander, who served as assistant secretary of Defense for international security affairs under President Biden; and Peter Frankopan, professor of global history at Oxford University.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Peter, you're in the studio and you're our European. What's your reaction? I mean, there was the strategy document that dropped when we were all at the annual Doha Forum. And then there was doubling down in this pretty scorching interview. What's your reaction?

PETER FRANKOPAN, PROFESSOR OF GLOBAL HISTORY, OXFORD UNIVERSITY: Well, I think it's not new. That sort of contempt, I think, we saw with J.D. Vance at Munich in March of this year. I think the way --

AMANPOUR: But it's now been officialized and formalized.

FRANKOPAN: -- but I think that's how the mainstream MAGA movement around Trump sees Europe. As a decaying -- that's the word he, in fact, used today.

AMANPOUR: It is.

FRANKOPAN: It's a decaying continent which is unproductive, is getting older, doesn't handle all the existential questions right and, quite frankly, is more or less dispensable to the United States.

So, Trump's America First looks to Europe as it does to most of the rest of the world, which is America alone. And I guess one of the equations is, can the U.S. do without allies, and particularly without Europe? And is that realignment that you mentioned of U.S. lining up with Russia, is that a good bet to take?

Because I think history would suggest probably you need to be pretty sanguine and pretty careful about what you're doing with the big Russian bear.

And the idea that we're the ones who are going to fail, the Russians will come out on top requires several leaps of faith.

AMANPOUR: That's interesting.

Celeste Wallander, to the very question that's been posed here. Can America do without its European allies?

[11:04:48]

AMANPOUR: And, yes, Trump, for the longest time, has hated the E.U. Remember, he said it was created just to destroy America, or whatever the right words are. Can it do without the allies?

CELESTE WALLANDER, FORMER U.S. ASSISTANCE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS: Well, it is really amazing that you played that clip from President Trump because his own national security strategy, the strategy that was released last week, states that Europe has a hard power advantage over Russia.

So, what I think you're seeing is a national security strategy that is internally inconsistent, incoherent, and doesn't even align with what the president of the United States is saying.

And so, it is not clear exactly what the White House strategy towards Russia is because, on the one hand, it is saying Europe has all these assets and should be confident and able to take care of Russia. And then you're hearing that Europe is on its way out because of immigration, because it's losing its -- again, the national security strategy refers to Europe losing its civilizational identity, as if that, you know, is something that is meaningful in a moment where Russia is using hard power to attack a European country, Ukraine.

And so, it's really hard to even grasp onto something to disagree with because the national security strategy is all over the map.

AMANPOUR: So, just -- I mean, I'd asked also whether the U.S. can do without its longtime allies in Europe. And also you said, you know, it's all these MAGA allies around Trump that have their views. Some people see Stephen Miller in there. Other people see J.D. Vance in there. And as you say, it is very inconsistent.

But on the question of alliance, can the U.S. do it alone?

WALLANDER: U.S. needs Europe for the assets that Europe brings to the table. America, of course, has the largest conventional military force in the world, but in order to be able to defend and deter, we need to have military bases, overflight permissions from countries across the globe, and in particular in Europe.

Europe helps the United States to support goals in the Middle East, access to be able to support allies throughout other parts of the world.

And we've, for example, in the operations against Iran's nuclear program, relied upon U.S. military assets based in Europe. The U.S. relies upon Europe to defend our homeland, to be able to prevent Russian nuclear submarines from being able to evade detection as they move through the North Atlantic to patrol off of the American North Atlantic coast.

So, this is why NATO is actually in American national security interests. It's not altruism. It is national self-interest. It has been for 80 years.

And the Trump White House just seems to lose sight of the reason why NATO was created. It was created to help protect America.

AMANPOUR: Now, Peter Frankopan, can Europe go it alone without the United States? And how long can or should European leaders put up with this unseemly abuse?

FRANKOPAN: One of the first questions is whether which parts of what Trump is saying or the defense strategy -- security strategy saying are fair and right. But clearly, what you have is a set of hierarchies.

And in Trump's global vision, there's no space for Latin America. There's nothing for Africa in this document. The Middle East is significantly downgraded.

And so, the way that the U.S. is seeing the world is a hierarchy with China at the top as the significant global competitor, and then how Russia fits into that axis.

Here in Europe, I think we've got to work out how do we deal with our defense, how do we deal with some of these existential questions too. And it's absolutely true that we bring a lot of pieces to the party, including world-class universities, defense architecture and so on that we're a key part of.

AMANPOUR: And intelligence.

FRANKOPAN: Absolutely. There's no question that we are part of those equations. But how it's seen from this White House is that we're not a particularly important piece on the jigsaw puzzle board. And unless we can help navigate the U.S. through some of these discussions, probably we're going to be pushed out of some of these discussions too in the future.

AMANPOUR: Macron, President Macron said this week -- it was reported that he had warned other European leaders that Washington might soon betray Ukraine.

And you had said earlier, beware the Europe you wish for, in your article, I believe.

So, to continue this bit, Europeans are growing a little bit wary, aren't they, of the United States. Can you see any sort of bifurcation?

WALLANDER: Well, we are already seeing European countries reconsider purchases of American defense production, of defense systems for the very concerns that Peter pointed to. So, we're already starting to see that effect.

And it is clearly the case that any kind of a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine that the White House prioritizes and has said that is a major objective of President Trump depends on Europe being on board.

[11:09:52]

WALLANDER: It is simply not -- the terms that have been discussed are not enforceable or implementable without European agreement.

So, while the United States may -- I hope we do not -- take a position of throwing, of betraying Ukraine and throwing them under the bus and letting, you know, the Kremlin just steamroll over the country and reacquire its sphere of influence in Ukraine, in fact, that really can't happen the way that the Kremlin wants unless Europe agrees to it.

So, I do think we are already seeing those kinds of divergences and we're seeing the effect of the United States not taking Europe seriously.

AMANPOUR: Peter Frankopan, Celeste Wallander, thank you very much. Really interesting to get your perspectives on all of this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And as analysts have been telling us throughout this war, Putin's mission is also to drive a wedge between the United States and its European allies.

Coming up next, a Syrian miracle.

Celebrating the first year out of the brutal, warmongering Assad dictatorship.

But it's not all milk and honey. My conversation with their new president, Ahmed Al-Sharaa.

And later in the program, the secret history of millions of Germans who defied the Nazis in World War II. We talk to author Jonathan Freedland.

[11:11:13] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

One year ago this week, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad fled the country, ending 13 years of civil war and decades of his family's brutal, repressive dictatorship.

Syrians have been celebrating the anniversary of their liberation, even as questions clearly remain about the unity of the nation and what the future holds.

The man who's tasked with that huge responsibility is Ahmed Al-Sharaa, the opposition leader and former al Qaeda militant once known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani. Now he is President Ahmed Al- Sharaa.

He's undoubtedly an international darling right now with a visit to the White House, where President Trump lifted some sanctions which are crucial to Syria's economic revival. And just this week, the U.S. Congress moved to repeal the tough Caesar Law sanctions on Syria.

But a United Nations commission still warns that Syria's transition remains fragile.

In a rare conversation, I spoke with Al-Sharaa at the Doha Forum in Qatar through several hard-working translators as you'll hear.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: You, Mr. President, have brought Syria out of its international isolation. You've been here, you've been there, you've been in the White House, you've been at the U.N. You have been all over the place.

Let's start by asking you whether you believe that Syria is fully into and integrated into the International Community and whether you have hope that your economy is on the way to being fixed.

AHMED AL-SHARAA, SYRIAN PRESIDENT (voice-over): This time last year, yes, you were at the Doha Forum and we were getting ready to storm Damascus and we probably changed the plans for the Doha Forum back then as we were advancing militarily on Damascus.

Over the past year, Syria managed to regain a large number of its regional and international relations and ties. And I think we have gone beyond the rapprochement phase and everything we promised, I believe, that we've kept since we entered Damascus.

And this has managed to build trust between us and a large number of regional international players. I believe we are definitely on the right path.

AMANPOUR: I've talked to several officials here and before I got here. As we know, Israel continues military operations on your country and it has demanded, I think, you can correct me if I'm wrong, sort of a demilitarized zone all the way from Damascus to the border.

There are those who don't believe that Israel has an interest in a unified Syria. What do you think Israel's objectives are in your country?

AL-SHARAA (through translator): Israel, in managing its crises in the region, often exports crises to other countries and tries to run away from the horrifying massacres it committed in Gaza. And it does so by attempting to export crises.

Israel has become a country that is in a fight against ghosts. They justify everything using their security concerns and they take October 7th and extrapolate it to everything that is happening around them.

I believe that since we arrived in Damascus, we sent positive messages regarding regional peace and stability and we've said very frankly that Syria will be a country of stability and we are not concerned in being a country that exports conflict, including to Israel.

However, in return, Israel has met us with extreme violence and Syria has suffered massive violations of our airspace and we've been victim of over 1,000 airstrikes and over 400 incursions, the last of which was the massacre that Israel committed in Beit Jinn that left over 25 people dead.

[11:19:47]

AL-SHARAA (through translator): So, what we try to do is convince powerful regional players and powerful international players. The entire world today supports Syria in its demands when we demand Israel to go back to the pre-December 8th lines.

AMANPOUR: In March, more than 1,400 Alawites, mostly civilians, were killed along the coast. The U.N. called it possible war crimes.

In July, there were hundreds of Druze people killed as well, and many, many displaced.

Can you tell those people from this seat what you will do to make them feel part of a unified Syria and potentially not make them pay for being supporters of the previous regime?

I know how these things happened. I was in Iraq when there was the U.S. intervention. I saw what happened on the ground when one party felt victorious and another party didn't.

AL-SHARAA ((through translator): There were confrontations, it is true. We have established a truth-finding committee. We know that there are some crimes that were perpetrated in the coast or in Suwayda, as you said.

But this is, of course -- this is a negative thing. But despite the atrocity of what happened, and we are not justifying anything here, I insist on the fact that we do not accept what happened.

But I say that Syria is a state of law, and the law rules in Syria, and the law is the only way to preserve everybody's rights.

I think that governments and authorities should be formed by experts, by technocrats, regardless of their ethnicity or origin.

AMANPOUR: And finally, as you know, you have a past of being a terrorist. I mean, you worked for al-Qaeda. What do you say to people in this room, in foreign capitals, about where your heart and your mind and your allegiance is now?

We see that in parts of Syria, not only, you know, the "T" word, but also the Islamic caliphate word. Ok, there's no Islamic caliphate in Syria. Women seem to be fairly liberated in quite a lot of the areas.

What would you say to maybe some guests sitting in this room who have yet to fully empower and some who absolutely deny women's rights?

AL-SHARAA (through translator): Terrorists, in my opinion, are those that kill innocent people, children and women, and that use illegitimate means to harm people.

If we try to extrapolate this description on several countries in the world, we find that the number of victims in Gaza, 60,000 people, most of them are innocent.

The Syrian regime during 14 years has killed more than 1 million persons in Syria. And until now, you have 2,000 and 50,000 disappeared persons with their destinies unknown or their fate unknown.

This regime is not called a terrorist. We saw wars in Afghanistan, in Iraq, all of those that were killed were innocent. And it is the killers that describe others as terrorists.

Now, on a personal level, I have never harmed a civilian. I fought on several fronts and I fought for more than 20 years with honor.

But I think that reality prevailed, or the truth prevailed at the end, and people now know that this description is not accurate. That is why I am no longer listed as a terrorist by the Security Council.

AMANPOUR: And you guarantee women's rights? That's a separate question, but women are fully empowered?

AL-SHARAA (through translator): There are a number of headlines that are being circulated, but women are empowered sort of automatically in Syrian communities.

So, I believe Syrian women are empowered, their rights are protected and guaranteed, and we constantly try to ensure that women are fully participating in our government and our parliament as well. And I believe you should not fear for Syrian women, fear for Syrian men.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: So he clearly wowed that crowd. And the president also told me Syria will have democratic elections in four years. After they hash out a whole new constitution for the nation. [11:24:44]

AMANPOUR: Coming up, they are the grassroots group gaining traction as the new face of Britain's anti-immigration movement.

The Pink Ladies claim to be standing for women's safety. But is their message telling a different story? Our report after the break.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need to get the army involved. We're being invaded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:29:45]

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

From mass demonstrations to embracing nationalistic language, far right sentiment is sweeping Britain. National polls show that anti- immigration party Reform U.K., formerly known as the Brexit Party, is presenting a serious challenge to the Labour government of Keir Starmer.

And as they aim to broaden their appeal, a new group is emerging, the Pink Ladies. They say they're standing up for the safety of women and children.

But when our Jomana Karadsheh went to one of their Pink rallies, it didn't take long to see how their campaign echoes familiar hard-right rhetoric.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Meet the Pink Ladies, a new face of Britain's growing anti-immigration movement. We went to one of their Pink protests just outside London to try and understand what this is all about.

ORLA MINIHANE, ORGANIZER, THE PINK LADIES: We've got our own scumbags, our own predators and our own sex pests. We do not need to bring in more every day men from cultures that do not think like we do, who treat women like third class citizens and who think it's acceptable to marry eight- and nine-year-old girls.

KARADSHEH: This is not racism, they say, and they're not the far- right. But a lot of what we heard sounded an awful lot like the far- right's narrative.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need to get the army involved. We're being invaded.

UNDIENTIFIED MALE: Well, it's bloody terrible. It's all over Europe, you know, being invaded.

KARADSHEH: By?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: By illegal migrants.

KARADSHEH: Advocacy groups say exploiting the issue of violence against women and genuine safety concerns is a common far-right tactic.

The Pink Ladies say they're grassroots -- women concerned about mass migration and what it means for their safety and the future of their country, putting out catchy tunes like this one that market their agenda.

The so-far small group emerged a few months ago at a time of rising tensions over migration with the far-right seizing on that.

A lot of people looking at what's happening in the U.K. from the outside, they might say that a lot of the things that you are saying are the talking points of the far-right. How would you --

MINIHANE: What is far-right? Far-right is extremists. Far-left is extremism. How am I extremist? I'm just a mum who's worked her whole life, who's bringing up three children, who lives in suburbia.

I don't want my daughter to be sexually assaulted by men that have come over to this country that we've got no -- no background checks on. if that makes me a far-right, then there's something very, very concerning with the rhetoric, right.

KARADSHEH: That's Orla Minihane. She's a local candidate for the right-wing populist party, Reform U.K.

Amid this show of pink solidarity and what was mostly a jovial and at times surreal atmosphere, we heard from women worried about their safety and that of their daughters.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Women are scared to walk anywhere. And, you know, we live in a small town.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the seriousness of what we're dealing with.

KARADSHEH: The government doesn't publish detailed figures on crimes committed by asylum seekers, but there have been some high-profile cases that have put women and girls on edge.

On top of that, there are the twisted facts that go unchecked.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These five women have died, have been murdered at the hands of an illegal migrant catastrophe that this government is letting happen.

KARADSHEH: Except two of the suspects in these five horrific murder cases are British nationals.

But for Laura and others, what they heard here was enough for them to make up their minds.

What is it that is making you feel unsafe?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, it's all the rapes, murders -- you know, what they've been talking about today.

KARADSHEH: Jomana Karadsheh, CNN -- Chelmsford, England.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And this week, the far-right French political leader, Jordan Bardella, also ahead in the polls, came to London to broaden his appeal, meeting with Brexit's Reform Now Nigel Farage explaining just what he likes about Trump 2.0, officially moving towards parties like his national rally, formerly the anti-Semitic National Front of Jean- Marie Le Pen.

Coming up, we step back into 1940s Berlin with journalist and author Jonathan Freedland to discuss his new book, "The Traitors Circle". It's a story of resistance inside Nazi Germany.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FREEDLAND: It's true that most fell in line, but some did not, and that makes their heroism all the more extraordinary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:34:27]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

It's a question that in many ways defined the 20th century. And it's becoming more and more relevant today. Who submits to tyranny and who stands up against it?

In his new book, "The Traitors Circle", journalist Jonathan Freedland examines that question through an extraordinary chapter of Nazi history that had all but been forgotten.

At its heart is a group of well-connected, privileged Germans who chose to risk everything to conspire against Hitler and his regime. That is, until a shocking betrayal from within.

Jonathan Freedland joined me here in London to tell me all about this edge-of-your-seat whodunit.

[11:39:50]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: I want to start with what you've taken on as a bit of a mission, I think, because I think you've said that, you know, there are many stories of resistors, but almost no stories of internal German, maybe even members of the Nazi party, I don't know, but German resistance to Hitler's regime. Tell me about that.

FREEDLAND: It's true. I think we have an image of resistance often associated with the French resistance --

AMANPOUR: Yes.

FREEDLAND: -- putting bombs on railway lines and on bridges and so on. In Germany, I think people know about the von Stauffenberg plot, July the 20th, "Valkyrie," the movie with a slightly miscast Tom Cruise.

People know about that, or they know about the White Rose movement, Sophie Scholl, and that's really it. They think after that, all the other Germans pretty well lined up behind Adolf Hitler.

And look, that is mainly true, 95 percent, according to an estimate by an Allied liberator, war crimes investigator in 1945, fell in line.

But it means about 3 million Germans, which is not nothing --

AMANPOUR: That's not nothing.

FREEDLAND: -- were jailed, were arrested, were detained for crimes of dissent, sometimes no more than a critical remark, and about half a million of those were killed.

AMANPOUR: I mean, that's really important to hear, because I remember, for me, Daniel Goldhagen's book, you know, "Hitler's Willing Executioners" is what I have in my mind.

FREEDLAND: Yes.

AMANPOUR: And to hear this is very rare.

FREEDLAND: And I grew up with that narrative quite directly. My mother imposed a full boycott of German goods in our house, no VW car, no Siemens dishwasher, because her own mother had been killed by the last rocket of the Blitz to fall on London, the last V2, killed her mother when my mother was just eight years old.

And after that, she was left with a kind of feeling that there were no good Germans. Every last one of them was implicated, very particularly in the crime of the Holocaust. The bomb that killed my mother's mother, took out a building in London's East End, killed 133 people, 120 of them were Jews.

Just a coincidence. But it meant, as I put in the book, my mother was not a Holocaust survivor, but she felt the breath of the Shoah on her neck.

And it meant she felt that there were irredeemable -- there was an irredeemable guilt about the Germans, every last one of them.

I then came across this story and thought, it's true that most fell in line, but some did not. And that makes the heroism all the more extraordinary.

AMANPOUR: Your book begins -- I mean, it's a thriller as well, at an afternoon tea party in Berlin, as we said, in September '43.

So, the party group -- partygoers are a group that could come from maybe an Agatha Christie novel, members of the German aristocracy, as you say, of the diplomatic corps, high place government officials.

So, what made this -- we're now talking about the story of your book, which is a true story, what made this tea party special? And how does it play into your story?

FREEDLAND: The grouping was in a way informal. There were all these overlapping social circles in the Germany of that time. And one of the key issues when any more than two people met was trust. Could you trust this other person you were speaking to?

Here, the bonds of class played an important part. These were really posh people here. There wasn't just one countess in this group, there were two.

There was a former top mandarin from the Ministry of Finance. Those were people with, you know, landed estates and so on. So, there was a sense that we know each other.

You know, there were two people there -- one, her father had served in Bismarck's cabinet. The other, his uncle. They knew each other. That was good enough.

So, what they had in common was this defiance or resistance of Adolf Hitler. They felt they could come together with kindred spirits; trading information, gossip even, but also know-how on how to do what they were doing.

What they did not know is that someone sitting around that table, who they thought was one of their own, thought was a kindred spirit, was about to betray all the rest of the --

AMANPOUR: And had infiltrated specifically?

FREEDLAND: That's right. I mean, we -- I -- you know, because it's a whodunit, I don't want to give away too much.

AMANPOUR: Yes, yes, yes. Don't tell me. Yes.

FREEDLAND: I don't want to give away too much. I want readers to be reading this thinking, is it the former model? Is it the doctor?

AMANPOUR: Right.

FREEDLAND: Is it the headmistress? Who is it?

AMANPOUR: You know, you've written this about these people, Germans who, like your mother, wanted to believe that everybody was guilty, et cetera.

Given the real politicization and the terrible feelings that there are all over the place right now, and everything is weaponized, do you get any backlash for this? Are there people who say to you, how can you, you know, a member of the Jewish community actually tell these stories?

FREEDLAND: A few people have wondered about it, saying, what would my mother think about this? They haven't said it necessarily in a hostile way, but I think my -- but they have asked it, and I think that there is -- I hope, that there is something sort of healing about somebody who -- you know, a Jew like me, who was raised on those stories, in no way exonerating the German nation.

I mean, that fact I mentioned before, 3 million dissenters is a big figure, but so is the 95 percent who stayed in line and raised their right hand in a Hitler salute.

[11:44:51]

FREEDLAND: Both are true, but I think we don't do any service to history if we exclude and just pretend those people who were brave and defiant, who took enormous risks, where the only possibility was downside for them, they had nothing to gain.

These people were of such established position, they would have been left alone. They would have been fine if they'd just kept their heads down.

AMANPOUR: I want to know much more, but our time is up for this time. And really, really an edge-of-your-seat tale, and important.

And Jonathan Freedland, thank you so much.

FREEDLAND: Thanks so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: The book's out now and it's a brilliant stocking filler in case anyone out there is struggling with Christmas lists.

Talking of which, from my archives, a festive trip to the North Pole. How one man from Harlem took a record-breaking trek to the top of the world and came back to encourage schoolchildren in New York.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: I was hoping that I could inspire them to continue to try to take on greater challenges.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:45:49]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

All over the Christmas-loving world, wherever you look, the decorations are seriously up. The old and the very young are surely spending a lot of time thinking about Santa Claus and maybe even sending letters to his place in the North Pole. This week in my archives, we found one man who I'd met nearly 40 years

ago, who had trekked all the way to the top of the world not just to see Santa, maybe not to see Santa at all, but to challenge himself and urge others on.

Darrell Roberts was the first black man ever to do it, and when he arrived back in New York city, he used his experience to inspire schoolchildren to dream big and work hard.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Last march, 24-year-old Darrell Roberts spent nearly two months walking to the North Pole. He was the first American and the youngest person ever to do so.

And today, he is bringing that experience to some inner-city classrooms. Along with this message.

ROBERTS: That you can make your dreams come true if you dare to dream about those things you want to do.

AMANPOUR: This class full of eighth graders sat in rapt attention as Darrell told them tales of his personal journey, enduring temperatures of 75 degrees below zero, trekking 12 hours a day, lugging 60 pounds of equipment on his back, fueled by little more than his dreams. Never once thinking of abandoning his feet even when his foot got severely frostbitten.

ROBERTS: I had a decision to make. Why didn't I just quit? I had a reason to, right. I might have frozen my foot and had to have it cut off.

AMANPOUR: But he made it to the top of the world and now he is back, telling youngsters that they too can make it to the top of theirs. It was a message that hit home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You want to do something you got to like work from, like try, keep trying and keep trying.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And all too often we talk to them about their dreams and about striving for excellence. But it's not real to them.

Now, here's someone who really had a dream and he really achieved this dream.

AMANPOUR: Someone who struggled and survived in the same neighborhoods as these children. Someone who, like many of them, grew up in a single parent home, cared for and inspired by his mother, who had him and a brother by the time she was 18 and was divorced at 20.

ROBERTS: And she went back and got her high school equivalency diploma, went on to college and graduated college. And then went on to law school and graduated law school. That's with two kids. At 17 or 18, growing up in Harlem without a father.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I learned to never give up. And no matter what, nobody says to always be your best.

AMANPOUR: A lesson that says ordinary people can achieve extraordinary goals, that anyone can make it to their own North Pole.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: So I met a lot of cool people and learned a lot of valuable lessons when I was just a cub reporter back then in New York.

And when we come back, an international case study in courage. Venezuela's opposition leader in hiding, Maria Corina Machado defies the odds to make it to Norway as she is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

That's after the break.

[11:53:35]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And finally, another story of resistance and bravery.

All eyes were on Oslo this week, and the international community was on tenterhooks wondering whether Maria Corina Machado would be able to accept her Nobel Peace Prize in person.

The committee said the Venezuelan opposition leader faced, quote, "extreme danger" to get there. She had been hiding inside her country from the dictator Maduro and his henchmen since last summer.

Now, for some, this laureate was a controversial choice because she is also an enthusiastic supporter of U.S. military intervention into her country.

In the end, though, she missed the ceremony. Yet she had defied the odds to escape Venezuela and make it to Norway.

Here's some of what she said on a phone call to let the committee know that she was on her way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIA CORINA MACHADO, VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION LEADER: So many people that risked their lives in order for me to arrive in Oslo and I'm very grateful to them. And this is a measure of what this recognition means to the Venezuelan people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Her daughter accepted the prize on her behalf, but she says the real gift was seeing her mother for the first time in two years when Machado finally reached Oslo.

Here's what the latest Nobel Peace Prize laureate had to say for herself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MACHADO: I am convinced that peace ultimately is an act of love, and that's what brought me here.

[11:59:48]

MACHADO: The love of millions of Venezuelans for country, for freedom and for children. And I believe there is no other generation in the history of Venezuela that has -- that loves more freedom or family and our soul (ph), our territory. The possibility of actually being in your homeland, in moving freely in your homeland because we have lost that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: That's all we have time for.

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 we'll see you all again next week.