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One World with Zain Asher
Tens Of Thousands Of Palestinians Head Back To Northern Gaza; Migrant Flight From U.S. Lands In Guatemala; Trump Ends Colombia Tariff Threat After Migrant Deal; China's DeepSeek Disrupting U.S. AI Market; Ceremony Marking 80 Years Since The Liberation Of Auschwitz; Holocaust Survivors Shares His Story With Next Generation. Aired 12:00-1:00p ET
Aired January 27, 2025 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:00:38]
ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR: Live from London, I'm Isa Soares, and this is ONE WORLD. A very warm welcome, everyone.
They have been waiting, as well as praying for this moment for months. Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians are returning to their demolished
neighborhoods in Northern Gaza. As you can see their, images, really moving images captured in this drone video, convey really the size of the crowds,
making their way in waves along the coast of Gaza.
This was meant to happen on Saturday, but they were kept waiting for another 48 hours after Israel accused Hamas of breaching the terms of the
ceasefire. Hamas and Israel later agreed to release more hostages.
Meanwhile, a startling idea floated by Donald Trump is raising alarm. The U.S. president said he would like Jordan and Egypt to take in more
Palestinians, suggesting Gaza, which lies in ruins, as we just showed you, needs to be, in his words, cleaned out.
Jordanian and Egyptian authorities swiftly rejected the idea, saying it would amount to displacing Palestinians from their homeland. Palestinians
and human rights groups also condemned Mr. Trump's remark, although a leading far-right figure, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has
welcomed the proposal.
Our Jeremy Diamond has more now from Tel Aviv for you.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, a checkpoint to Northern Gaza was finally opened early this morning and tens of thousands of
Palestinians who lived in Northern Gaza and have been displaced for months now, finally beginning to make their way back home.
It is an emotional journey for many, as we have seen people carrying all of their belongings with them in their hands on donkey carts or piling into
buses to try and make their way to Northern Gaza after so many months of displacements.
What they are finding there, of course, is an enormous level of destruction, perhaps more than anywhere else in the Gaza Strip.
But one after the other, the people who are returning home expressed their desire to go back, no matter what the conditions on the ground there,
expressing their connection to their homes in Northern Gaza.
They were only allowed to return to Northern Gaza after a nearly 48-hour delay and when they were initially supposed to be allowed to return north,
based on the ceasefire agreement. That was after there was a dispute between Israel and Hamas over the release of one of the Israeli hostages
who Israel expected to be released this past Saturday.
Instead, she, a female civilian hostage named Arbel Yehud, was not released. Four female soldiers were released instead. And Israel demanded
that she be released in order to move forward with this part of the agreement regarding the return of Gazans to the northern part of the Strip.
Arbel Yehud is indeed now expected to be released on Thursday.
And with that agreement in place, Israel opened that checkpoint to allow Gazans to return to that part of the strip.
But as we are watching these images of people returning to this devastated section of the Gaza Strip, we are also now hearing comments from President
Trump calling for the mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, for them to be moved to Egypt and Jordan, and saying that Gaza needs to be cleaned
out.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we just clean out that whole thing. You know, it's over the centuries it's had many, many
conflicts, that site.
And I don't know, it's something has to happen. But it's literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything's demolished.
DIAMOND: And President Trump says that he wants Egypt and Jordan to be a safe harbor for these Palestinians. But this has rings of notions of mass
displacements that, of course, are triggering for many Palestinians who have suffered displacements over decades and decades in Israel and the
Palestinian territories.
And it's also a notion that's already been rejected by both Egypt and Jordan, as the Jordanian foreign minister says that Palestine is for
Palestinians and Jordan is for Jordanians, rejecting any notions of mass displacement.
We should also note that these ideas being spawned by Trump already have drawn a lot of favor here in Israel from right-wing ministers in the
Israeli government who have talked about, quote, voluntary emigration for many, many months now.
Those ideas, though, being soundly rejected in the region, not clear what the path forward is for President Trump and his administration for his
making that a reality.
[12:05:02]
Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: And our thanks to Jeremy for that report .
Meanwhile, the United States says a separate ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon will be extended by three weeks to February
18th. Lebanese officials said, Israeli forces killed at least 22 people and injured dozens more in Southern Lebanon on Sunday.
And it came as thousands of people tried to return to their homes, defying an order by the Israeli military not to go back. Israel, said Friday, its
forces will not withdraw as initially agreed, blaming Lebanon comply with the deal.
For more on all these very fast-moving developments, all these strands, I want to bring in Firas Maksad. He's a senior director and a senior fellow
at the Middle East Institute and joins from Washington, D.C. Firas, great to have you back on the show.
We'll speak about Lebanon in just a second, but I really want to pick up with what we heard from our Jeremy Diamond, really, in Tel Aviv, and those
comments by President Trump of cleaning out the whole thing, speaking of the enclave.
I mean, this is pretty alarming. Just frame this for us. Is this a slip of the tongue? Or do you fear this is future U.S. policy?
FIRAS MAKSAD, SENIOR DIRECTOR AND SENIOR FELLOW, MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE: Thank you, Isa. Yes, I actually recently just came back from meetings with
senior officials in Jordan. And I could tell you, even when it comes to the Egyptians, that what President Trump is insinuating is simply not on the
table and a nonstarter.
It touches on the very national security of both countries. In Jordan's case, almost some 60 percent of the population is believed to be a
Palestinian origin. It's a very tight balancing act between those of Palestinian origins and those who are not. The Jordanian monarchy just will
simply not accept this, despite the considerable leverage that President Trump has in trying to bring about this transfer of Palestinians from Gaza.
This is in addition to the fact that, you know, the idea of transferring Palestinians out of their land is a very sensitive issue for Palestinians
and part of the Palestinian national trauma and narrative.
So we've seen President Trump make some comments like that before in his term. He mentioned withdrawing from Syria on a phone call with the Turkish
president, had to eventually walk it back, given pushback from within his administration. I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happens in
the weeks down the road.
SOARES: Yes. And look, we've heard from Hanan Ashrawi -- Dr. Hanan Ashwari, famous, of course, famous Palestinian activist, scholar, politician as
well. And she says, note to President Trump, this is on X, Palestine, including Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem is the land of the Palestinian
people. It's where they live and where they belong. They're not pawns, she says, in a chess game. To ethnically cleanse them is not only inhuman and a
war crime, but it also presents a dangerous threat to the stability of the whole region and to the sovereignty of neighboring states. That's how to
start wars, not end them.
So let me pick up really with, you know, what you got when you were out in the Middle East, because as we well know, the U.S. gave significant amounts
of aid to Egypt and to Jordan.
Could Trump, who as we've seen, as we well known, Firas, is a very transactional president, could he pull this aid if countries continue to
refuse taking in Palestinians?
MAKSAD: Well, at this point, Isa, President Trump has given a directive to stop all foreign aid, all foreign U.S. aid, with the exception of Egypt and
Israel, because of that crucial peace treaty that's been in place since 1979, and in many ways which the U.S. underwrites.
Jordan, the U.S. assistance to Jordan is a lifeline. And so there will be serious questions if, in fact, President Trump wants to bring that leverage
to bear to try and force Jordan to take on more Palestinians, whether Jordan can survive by finding means of aid elsewhere in the region,
particularly the rich Gulf states in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others.
But this is no doubt a difficult, very difficult position for perhaps Americans leading Arab ally to find itself in. And, yes, President Trump is
going to try to push for that.
The quick question here is whether there will be a counter push in the other direction from many quarters within his administration to caution
against such a move.
SOARES: Yes. Look, we've already heard, and our correspondent was mentioning this, that Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right finance minister, is
already endorsing his proposal, saying, quote, there is no doubt in the long run encouraging migration is the only solution that will bring peace
and security to the residents of Israel and alleviate the suffering of Gaza's Arab residents.
And then he basically went on to say that he's working on a plan to implement Trump's vision. But, you know, it's -- I want to tap into your
expertise yet again for us in the region.
How does this complicate then the relationship, the negotiations with the Saudis who have themselves called for an independent Palestinian state? I
mean, what is Saudi Arabia's role here?
[12:10:06]
MAKSAD: Yes. I wouldn't be, at all, surprised if there are some who question whether Trump's idea of a transfer of Palestinians out of Gaza to
Egypt, and then Jordan, is part and parcel of his attempt at achieving normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Essentially, he's throwing some red meat to the more radical elements that are far right in Israeli society, that then perhaps say, then in return,
you need to move with me on the issue of Palestinians so that we can get to a normalization with Saudi Arabia.
If, in fact, in Trump, This is something that they are conjuring, I think it's a non-starter. If anything, the Saudis have only hardened their
position on the issue of Palestinian rights because of the backfire of the past year and three months of horrific images playing out on the television
screens and the impact that that has on Saudi and Arab public opinion.
So again, I see this as perhaps not a fully thought through proposition by the Trump administration that eventually one would hope they would have to
walk back.
But no doubt, President Trump is very focused on the big picture of trying to get normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. That's just not the
way to get there.
SOARES: Yes. Look, may not be fought through proposition, but we did hear last week from Donald Trump's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the U.N.,
Elise Stefanik, I'm sure you heard, who said that, quote, Israel has a biblical right, her words, to annex the West Bank.
So all these words, of course, these comments from the new administration, of course, incredibly worrying indeed.
Firas, I really appreciate your expertise crucial at this moment from the region. Thank you.
Now in the United States, just one week into office and President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, well, it's well underway.
A commercial flight carrying dozens of deportees landed in Guatemala City just a short time ago, and a military flight carrying more migrants is set
to land later today.
CNN's David Culver was there when the flight landed, and as he explains, the repatriation process is a long, as well as complicated one. Have a
listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're seeing the images that happened just a few minutes ago as they were stepping onto the tarmac here after
being returned by a commercial aircraft that was chartered.
Now, there's two flights today that have been planned for, and one is the commercial one that just arrived, another later today will be a military
aircraft from the U.S. that is being allowed here to land, according to the Vice President, without any issues.
And I spoke with her a short time ago just before she welcomed these migrants. Now, I can't show you their faces right now, but you can see
behind me some of these folks invest. They're at computers and they're going to start registering some of them.
And then in a little bit, I'm going to be able to speak to some of them and you'll get to know some of their stories throughout the day as we make sure
that they're comfortable talking to us.
But let me show you what they walk into as they come in here. Jerry, watch your step here as we come around.
You're going to see some of these chargers that are set up. This is where they come in and charge their phones to try to be in touch then with family
and folks on the ground who can help them with transportation to figure out next steps.
This is an interesting area too. This is where their belongings are. So you can see there's a guitar case. You've got just what basically are potato
sacks, if you will. I mean that's basically what I'm looking at here that are stapled with their names and their information.
And I even see some things like packets of sugar from Wawa, you know, a store in the U.S. Things that must have just been in their pockets that
they emptied out which is pretty standard.
They also aren't wearing shoe laces. Pretty typical from what we've seen when they've been picked up by Border Patrol, for example, on the U.S.
side. That tends to be part of the protocol to remove shoelaces, anything that could be deemed a hazard.
And so this is what they're going to pick up after they finally are done with their registration and their reintegration process.
Speaking to the vice president here, though, one of the things I wanted to get a sense of is what has changed now under President Trump that is
different from deportation flights, say, a week and a half ago under President Biden.
The vice president is telling me the numbers and the capacity have not changed, that that is staying the same as of now.
The one difference though is that they are allowing military flights to move forward with some of these deportations.
Obviously, that was an issue, as we saw in the past 24 hours in Colombia, but here the vice president telling me, it's not going to be an issue.
They're going to allow that to continue forward. She was very careful in how she was describing this saying that she wants relations between
Guatemala and the U.S. to remain stable, to be at ease, as they're going through this challenging moment.
But all in all, she said this is an opportunity for them to really focus, as she put it, on the migrants who are coming here.
[12:15:00]
Once they come in here, this is kind of the final step before they then go back into life here in Guatemala, which for many of them is decades ago
that they left.
And it's a brutal civil war from the '60s into the mid-90s and then found themselves in the U.S. trying to build new lives. It's a challenge, no
question, for many of them.
But the other point that was brought to my attention, Jim, is there's a lot of security here. I mean, has to go through this area, and not only because
the vice president is here, but just because this is an area where you have coyotes, which are essentially think of cartel-backed smugglers, that are
preying on the exteriors of this place.
And so you have armed forces who are carrying rifles. You've got police who are armed as well. And they will escort these migrants onto the buses and
make sure that they can get from this location to a central bus terminal without being exploited because that seems to be a huge issue.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: Our thanks to David Culver in Guatemala City there.
Let's go to Colombia. Because Colombia says it has overcome its impasse with the U.S. and will now accept deported migrants being returned on
American military planes. And Colombia now says, it is sending two of its own planes to the U.S. to pick up some of its citizens.
Over the weekend, if you remember, Colombian President, Gustavo Petro, blocked the arrival of two deportation flights from the United States,
citing the inhumane treatment of migrants.
President Donald Trump then threatened to impose steep tariffs on the U.S. ally and announced a travel ban.
The Colombian president, excuse me, responded by announcing retaliatory tariffs. But by late Sunday, the White House said Bogota had agreed to all
the President Trump's terms, including accepting migrants on military flights.
And monitoring it all, reporting all of this for us, was a Stefano Pozzebon, who joins me now from the Colombian capital.
And, Stefano, I mean, this, I was seeing it play out last night on a Sunday evening. This escalated rather quickly, as well as dramatically, from that
long tweet from President Petro. And then he relented quite quickly too.
I mean, what happened in those frantic hours? Because that was a very long tweet from President Pedro.
STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Isa, welcome to Latin America 2025, where diplomacy is made on Twitter.
Well, basically, what we saw is that the president of Colombia and the president of the United States were drafting state policies, almost
messaging at each other on each other's social media. Petro was using X, as we now call Twitter, and Donald Trump instead was using his own social
media platform, Truth Social.
In the meantime, right where I am, because we're coming to you live from the Colombian Foreign Ministry. Well, the diplomats were busy. They were on
the phone trying to amend whatever the two leaders were telling each other.
And so that's why on Sunday, late at night, we were here and we heard from Foreign Minister, Luis Gilberto Murillo, these statements saying that
Colombia and the United States had agreed to resolve this impasse.
Of course, we're talking about two countries that have a historic alliance that dates back from the 1970s and '80s. Millions of Colombians travel to
the United States every single year just to visit their friends and family. There is a vibrant Colombian-American community, of course, in most of the
Latin -- northern American cities.
And so the perspective of the United States, stop issuing travel visas for all of these Colombians, as well as the tariffs. We're talking about
coffee. We're talking about flowers. We're talking about mineral exports. And, you know, all of this cooperation.
The security aspect here in the war on drugs in Colombia is all handled through this relationship with the United States.
And so the -- it's almost as if the professionals were able to amend the rift, that the two presidents, both of them quite populist to be fair, were
just about to cause and to trigger. And this is why, right now, we can report that there are two Colombian flight -- airplanes in the air going
towards the United States as we are speaking to pick up those deported migrants that were left stranded yesterday because of this diplomatic rift.
SOARES: Yes.
POZZEBON: For once, the cool head seems to have prevailed, Isa.
SOARES: And, Stefano, just branch this out for us, you know, in Latin America, how these deportation flights have been received there. Because I
know Brazil also has had some very strong words for the United States.
POZZEBON: Yes. It seems that the Latin American leadership is taking more offense to how these things are happening, rather than what is happening.
Take the case of Colombia. We've had 124 flights, deportation flights, from North America throughout 2024. That's more than 10 per month.
What Petro tried to draw a line on is the use of military flight. Like David pointed out, the fact that these migrants sometimes are either in
handcuffs. They were not in David's report out of Guatemala, but sometimes they are, or that they take off their shoelaces as a standard practice when
they encounter a CBP officer up in the United States.
[12:20:16]
So they want these migrants to be treated with dignity. That is the message that we are hearing from Brazil, like you said, from Mexico, from
Guatemala, and now from Colombia.
But that doesn't mean that these countries are not ready to welcome back those deported migrants. Guatemala and Honduras have both launched plans to
welcome back this population. Of course, Colombia has these plans in place for a long time.
I've been reporting on this story for years. And it's standard practice to receive two or three flights per week back of bringing undocumented
migrants back here. It's just the how, the way that the Trump administration is pushing it causes some issues in this side of the world.
But I also think that this is how Latin America is learning, Isa, to speak with Donald Trump. Latin America is learning how to handle the new
president of the United States up there in Washington.
SOARES: Yes.
POZZEBON: And how to craft a united policy towards him. Isa.
SOARES: Yes. Maybe stay away from X and do it, you know, the old-fashioned way, you know, via phone. It might help. Just saying. Stefano.
POZZEBON: At least on a Sunday. At least on a Sunday. At least on a Sunday.
SOARES: Right. Exactly. Stefano, good to see you. Thanks very much.
Now, creating artificial intelligence can take years and billions of dollars. So how did a year old Chinese startup do it for less than six
million dollars? We'll take a look after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SOARES: A Chinese AI company is boasting a big advancement that sent U.S. stocks into downward spiral. The company is called DeepSeek and their AI
does all the things other AI offerings can do, but at a fraction of the cost.
DeepSeek says it spent less than $6 million to train its newest AI model. To put that for you into perspective, Meta says it will spend $65 billion,
that's with a B by the way, just this year on AI. And that, as you can imagine, as you can see there, is dragging stock markets.
The tech-heavy NASDAQ, as you can see, down three and three cents of a percent. S&P down almost two percent. The Dow Industrial, the only one
that's just barely starting the week on the positive and the green.
[12:25:01]
Let's bring in our Claire Duffy from CNN Business to give us all the details. So the question is, Clare, at this point, is, you know, how
exactly there's a one-year-old AI startup company from China, you know, do this for a fraction of the cost?
CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: That is the huge question, Issa. Look, this is really competitive with the most advanced AI models from the AI
tech giants, OpenAI, Meta, Google. DeepSeek, as you said, is a one-year-old Chinese startup that says it spent just $5.6 million to build this tool.
That is, as you say there, in contrast to the billions of dollars that American tech giants have spent.
And in theory, this is a company that should have been subject to U.S. export controls on the most advanced AI chips. So the question really is,
how did they pull this off? Were they able to get around those U.S. export restrictions? Or were they really able to build a competitive project at a
fraction of the cost with less powerful AI chips?
And I think if that's the case, we absolutely will see American investors asking tough questions of the Silicon Valley tech giants about what they've
been spending their money on. Why has it been so expensive for them to build these advanced AI models when we see this startup competitor building
an advanced model at a fraction of the cost?
Now, I don't think this is necessarily the worst possible sign for the American tech giants. It certainly raises questions about U.S. leadership
in the AI space. But this is a consumer tool. And I don't imagine that we'll see the corporations that are paying these big tech companies to use
their AI models all of a sudden shift to a relatively unknown Chinese startup.
It's also interesting, I've been playing around with it a bit this morning and DeepSeek appears to be subject to some of the same sort of censorship
that we know is present on other Chinese platforms. For example, we asked it about if it would tell us the story of what happened at Tiananmen Square
and the app said, I'm sorry, I can't answer that.
So I don't know that we'll necessarily see this huge shift of users over to this platform, although it is causing a lot of buzz this week, but it
certainly does raise questions about the spending that we're seeing by the American tech companies.
SOARES: Yes. We're seeing shockwaves. I'm just looking at, as you were talking, I'm looking at NVIDIA shares down 16, just over 16 percent today.
I know you'll stay across this for us.
Clare, thank you very much.
And still to come right here, never forget the world pauses --
DUFFY: Thank you.
SOARES: -- to remember a crime of shattering proportions and wonders how to prevent it from every ever happening again. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:30:11]
SOARES: Welcome back to ONE WORLD, I'm Isa Soares.
Never forget, that is, of course, the phrase repeated again and again by those who implore the world to heed the lessons of the Holocaust. Never
forget. And it is especially important today, as we mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp.
Hundreds of people, including Germany's Chancellor and Britain's King Charles, gathered for a ceremony on the grounds of the former camp, where
more than a million people, mostly Jews were murdered.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOVA FRIEDMAN, AUSCHWITZ SURVIVOR: So I'm here to talk about those who aren't here. And I'm very honored to speak to this kind of audience that
has come from all over the world to mourn, remember, and honor the memory of our people who were so brutally murdered by the Nazis.
However, however, we are also here to proclaim and to pledge that we will never, never, ever allow history to repeat itself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: Pushing words there. CNN's senior international correspondent Melissa Bell joins us live from Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Melissa, this is, of course, an incredibly grim anniversary for all those survivors who have returned. But an important lesson, as we heard from that
lady. Give us a sense of what you've been hearing and what we've been seeing today.
MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNTIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It really went when you just heard there to the heart of so many of the speeches that we heard
from some of the survivors.
Remember, of course, Isa, that these survivors we heard from today arrived here as children. They were the lucky few who survived the initial
selection. They then survived the camps. They then survived the aftermath of the war. And all these decades later are well enough to make their way
here to make their voices heard.
And in and of itself, that was remarkable enough. Their stories as well and what they had to say, as they rose from their seats to make their speeches
that they were speaking for the many millions who had not been able to escape these camps.
And with this very somber message at the heart of what they said, that that phrase at the end of World War II, when the horrors of the camps were
discovered, never forget, they feared was, in fact, passing and that the world was forgetting. And that's really what these commemorative events
have been about today here at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Isa.
The fact that these numbers of survivors able to make their way here with their stories, with their memories, and they spoke with such vivid
descriptions of what they remembered of as children. The fact that these living witnesses should be so few, only 50 of them this -- here this time,
and unlikely to be as numerous next time, and certainly in five years when the next large commemorative events take place, that really gave a real
poignancy to everything we heard here today.
There were also, of course, a number of heads of state, the British monarch, the Spanish king, heads of state as well, in the shape of
President Vladimir Zelenskyy. The French president was here, the German chancellor, the German president, a whole host of European leaders who'd
made their way here. None of them spoke. This was about the voices of those who were here and those few that survived, Isa.
SOARES: And, you know, Melissa, I spoke to a Holocaust survivor this year. I spoke to a lady Holocaust survivor. I think she was 90-something last
year. And, you know, what they both told me is something you probably heard as well, is the fear of course that Europe may be forgetting the lessons of
the past, of what happened in Auschwitz.
[12:35:02]
So I know that European leaders didn't address this, but any statements put out, any sense of how to prevent this from happening again, the lessons
that have been learned here?
BELL: That is exactly what has been raised over and over again here today. The only non-survivor that we heard from here today was Ambassador Ronald
Lauder, who is a man responsible for restoring so much of the camp behind me here at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
He'd come in the 1970s. And then in 1980s, he was the American ambassador to Vienna at the time. And what he found was the camp in a state of
disrepair. So he built the museum and he's one of the biggest donors to this space.
And, of course, when you do come to Auschwitz-Birkenau, thanks largely to those efforts, you see day after day school children being brought around.
And, of course, the idea is that as the living witnesses go, the fact that there should be something here, so much here, with all of the individual
rooms that are still here, with all the spectacles that were recovered, the suitcases, the shoes, those poignant memories of the lives that were lived
of the people that arrived here, most of them never escaping.
In fact, 900,000 died, Isa, on the very day that they arrived. But it is those very small pieces of who they were, of what they brought and left
behind that you can still see here at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I think that speaks so poignantly to the past.
But, yes, the danger is, and it's something we've been hearing over the course of the last couple of days around these survivors and these events
that have taken place around them, the fears that rising anti-Semitism in Europe speaks to the fact that memory is actually fairly short and that it
takes a couple of generations for people to forget where that anti-Semitism and hatred can lead to, Isa.
SOARES: Indeed. Melissa Bell for us there in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Thank you very much, Melissa.
Well, time now for The Exchange. And joining me now is the granddaughter of two Auschwitz survivors, Deborah Kalkoene, who has dedicated herself to
spreading the story of the horror of her grandparents and what they lived through. Thank you very much, Deborah. We're so grateful for your time
today.
Just from what I understand, and I'm sure you'll clarify for me, both your grandparents were sent to Auschwitz, both survived, but your grandfather,
and correct me if I'm wrong, actually escaped. Just tell us their story.
DEBORAH KALKOENE, GRANDPARENTS SURVIVED AUSCHWITZ: Thank you for having me, Bianna. Thank you again. This is a very special day. That's correct. My
grandfather walked the death march after he was sending through from Auschwitz. A couple days later, he came in Blechhammer after the death
march.
And in Blechhammer, he puts himself under a mattress. So he hoped he wouldn't find by the German. And he was laying for a few days under a
mattress. But after a couple days, he doesn't now remember exact how many he was found by the Russian, by the army, and he was -- that was his first
moment of freedom. So that was -- that was his liberation moment.
And they died, Deborah, from what I understand, in 2010 and 2015, but for some 60 years or so, they did not speak a word to each other about this.
Why do you think that is?
KALKOENE: Well, they want -- they -- after they came back in the Netherlands, after they survived, they came back and they fell in love.
They didn't know each other. So they built a whole new life together with children, grandchildren, and after grandchildren. So they want a good life
for their family.
So -- and it's also a lot of pain, so much pain for them. So they did everything they can to give their family a good life. And they did a good
one.
SOARES: And we're looking at some of your photos. They're just beautiful photos. And I was wondering, you know, as I was reading about your
grandfather's story, at what point you were told, and whether you feel now, Deborah, that you have a responsibility to keep telling their story.
KALKOENE: Well, we know that in a few years, there are no survivors --
SOARES: Yes.
KALKOENE: -- anymore, so they cannot tell it anymore. So it's up to the new generation like me. I'm a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. We need to
keep tell the stories. Because if I don't do it, if nobody else is going to tell the stories, then what?
So I feel it's my job to tell the stories. Their stories are -- I am their stories. So I have to keep telling about them and their families. They were
people. They have names and they had lives. So I want to tell about them. I want to honor them.
[12:40:15]
And it's so important, as my colleague, Melissa Bell, who is in Auschwitz- Birkenau camp today, was saying, you know, not only are there fewer Holocaust survivors, but we are also seeing, Deborah, a rise in anti-
Semitism in the West.
So just what lessons do you think we can learn from the horrors of the past? What do you tell, Deborah, younger generations, those who are
prepared to listen?
KALKOENE: I tell that it's when I go to classes, it's very close. It can be in your street, it can be everywhere. So we have to keep alert to it and be
careful with each other. Talk to each other. It's so close to us. So it was never gone. It was always here. So we have to keep alert to it.
SOARES: And do you think that is your mission now, Deborah? That's what your --
KALKOENE: Yes.
SOARES: -- grandparents would have wanted, your family would have wanted? Is this something that you would pass on, you think, to future generations?
KALKOENE: Yes. I will go as long as I can. I will tell about the stories because those are stories. It began -- it began with a few words 80 years
ago, more than 80 years ago. So we have to keep telling, showing, telling people like me, next generations, everyone who can tell. One story is one
story for a lot of people to tell.
SOARES: And when you hear, as you probably would have heard, you know, of Holocaust deniers, when you hear them spewing those lies, you think what?
KALKOENE: Go to Auschwitz. Go and see, learn, watch, and listen. Listen to people like me. Go to a museum. Listen and watch. Just listen for two
minutes.
SOARES: Listening is so important right now. I've been to Auschwitz- Birkenau camp twice in my teens, and it's definitely marks you for life. So important. We're so grateful that you are continuing, Deborah, their
testimonies of keeping that alive.
Thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us.
KALKOENE: Thank you.
SOARES: Deborah Kalkoene, thank you.
Now the United Nations is sounding the alarm over a growing humanitarian crisis as rebel forces reportedly make gains in the Democratic Republic of
Congo. That story after the short break. You are watching CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:45:34]
SOARES: Now investigators in South Korea say they found feathers and other signs of possible bird strike in the engines of the Jeju airplane that
crashed last month. That is according to a preliminary report that was released on Monday.
They are still trying to determine exactly what brought down the 737. It was coming from Bangkok when it overshot the runway in one, then crashed
into a structure killing all but two of the 181 people on board. It is the deadliest air disaster on South Korean soil.
It's time to move on from the past guilds. That was Elon Musk's message during a surprise virtual appearance at a far-right campaign rally in
Germany on Saturday. You can see there.
He told the crowd that the populist anti-immigrant AFD party is the country's best hope in next month's snap election. And he warned, and I'm
quoting here, the future of civilization may be at stake.
In what appears to be a reference to Germany's Nazi history, Musk also said this. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELON MUSK, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, TESLA: And I think there's like, frankly, too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that.
People who -- you know, children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents or even let alone their parents, their great-grandparents maybe
even.
It's good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything. You know, I
think we want to have unique cultures in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: And Musk's comments come days after he faced criticism for a gesture that some have said resembled a Nazi salute during a speech in
Washington, D.C.
Western leaders are rejecting election results in Belarus that further extend the rule of Europe's longest serving leader. Britain immediately
imposed sanctions after it was announced that Alexander Lukashenko won re- election in a landslide with 87 percent of the vote.
The strongman will now enter his seventh term in power. That's just for context, 31 years. The Belarusian leader is a close ally of Russian
President Vladimir Putin and his country has played a key role in Moscow's war on Ukraine.
I now want to take you to Africa where Rwanda backed M23 rebels claim to have captured eastern Congo's largest city, Goma, from Congolese forces.
The rebels are one of about a hundred armed groups vying for control in the mineral region in a decade's long conflict.
Now more residents are fleeing. The area is already home to one of the world's largest humanitarian crises with more than six million people
displaced.
Listen as two women fleeing the fighting describe their suffering.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCELINE KACHARANGE, DISPLACED BY FIGHTING: We are fleeing without knowing where we're going, as if we have nowhere to return. Look, my older sister,
she gave birth yesterday. She has a baby, and we don't know what to do.
JEANETTE NEEMA MATONDO, WOUNDED IN FIGHTING: We packed our bags, took our children, and left. When we reached the checkpoint, a bomb fell on us. I
was thrown backward in the direction I had come from. I still had my baby on my back. And my belongings were next to me. But everyone around me was
dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: Late Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated his strongest condemnation of the M23 offensive and called on the group to
immediately halt all hostile action and withdraw its forces.
And still to come tonight, as the world observes is the end of one of the darkest chapters in history, one of the few remaining Auschwitz survivors
is working to share his story of the Holocaust with the next generation. We'll bring you that story, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:50:24]
SOARES: World leaders and Holocaust survivors have been commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of one Nazi Germany's most notorious
concentration camps. They gathered at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where earlier the Polish president spoke about the unimaginable pain inflicted on Holocaust
victims.
One of the few remaining survivors, meanwhile, is working to share the terrible story of the Holocaust with the next generation, as I found out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JACKIE YOUNG, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: What I'm about to tell you now I had absolutely no knowledge of myself.
SOARES (voice-over): For the last 13 years, Jackie Young has been taking teenagers beyond the history books.
YOUNG: The war has been on already two -- over two years.
SOARES (voice-over): Educating them about the Holocaust by retelling his harrowing story as a baby sent to a Nazi concentration camp.
YOUNG: How and why I survived two years, eight months as a nine-month-old baby, I still do not know.
SOARES (voice-over): It was 1945 when Jackie in the U.K. on a British Royal Air Force plane. His adoptive parents never told Jackie he was a Holocaust
survivor, keeping his early life secret for years.
YOUNG: Any little piece of the puzzle of my past would be than welcome.
SOARES (voice-over): It's a puzzle that he is yet to complete. But with each piece, a moment of clarity for 83-year-old Jackie.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is something you haven't found out yet but you'd like to see?
SOARES (voice-over): And an awakening of the minds for this younger generation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did the whole process change your identity and the way you see the world today?
YOUNG: It's what I call cathartic.
SOARES (voice-over): With each passing year, some fear this generation could be the last to hear from Holocaust survivors. Their testimonies
consigned to footnotes in history books.
SOARES: Given, what we heard from Jackie and the lessons from history and what is playing out in the world right now, how does his story shape all of
you who are the future?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel that it really highlights the importance and the need to stand up to, you know, prejudice and stand up for those who are
vulnerable. And I thought that it's -- it reminds us of the importance of teaching and educating younger generations to really combat prejudice and
promote peace.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I agree. And that kind of story kind of leaves you wondering, what about the other children that had this same story? What
happened to them? Do they know what happened? Do they not know?
[12:55:00]
SOARES (voice-over): Jackie says he has found peace that the puzzle of his life may never be complete.
YOUNG: I'm visioning myself to the fact that the pieces are smaller by the day.
SOARES: The reception you get from the teenagers, many of them study this, which as I heard today, is quite -- it's quite another story hearing it
directly from someone who lived it and breathed it.
What do you think they take away from it?
YOUNG: I'd like to think that they have opened their eyes a bit to what can happen with humanity. I mean, we've got no other (INAUDIBLE) on this world.
SOARES (voice-over): Life lessons from a Holocaust survivor whose story of trauma and resilience will hopefully reverberate beyond these school walls.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: And our thanks to Jackie Young for his time as well, of course, as the teachers and the students at Hendon School.
And that does it for this hour of ONE WORLD. I'm Isa Soares. I'll be back in about an hour or so. Thank you very much for your company. In the
meantime, "AMANPOUR" is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
