Monday, July 20th | 6 Av 5786

Subscribe
August 29, 2022 3:06 pm

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Includes Testimony From Holocaust Survivor Father in TV Special About Shoah Museum

×



    avatar by Shiryn Ghermezian

    Wolf Blitzer inside the US Holocaust Memorial Museum for the CNN special “Never Again: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, A Tour with Wolf Blitzer.” Photo: CNN.

    CNN news anchor Wolf Blitzer shared details about his family’s personal experiences in the Holocaust in a special television program on Friday night that took viewers inside the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.

    Blitzer, the child of Holocaust survivors and grandson of four victims, talked about both of his parents who lived in Poland when Nazi German forces invaded in 1939 in the hour-long CNN special “Never Again: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: A Tour With Wolf Blitzer.”

    In the special, the anchor of “The Situation Room” is guided around the museum by its director, Sara Bloomfield, as they discuss Holocaust denial, antisemitism in today’s America, the lessons of World War II and Blitzer’s identity as the descendant of survivors. The special includes interviews with a leading historian, other Holocaust survivors and a young museum volunteer.

    Blitzer’s mother, who helped her two siblings survive the Holocaust as well, met his father after World War II in Europe, where they married before moving to the US.

    In the CNN special, his father, the late David Blitzer, talks in audio and video recordings about his Holocaust survival story. In one audio clip, David, who was born in the Polish town of Oswiecim — which was later renamed Auschwitz — discussed the support Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had in Germany, saying, “I never saw and I never heard a German who should regret that Hitler is at power. Only when they started to lose the war.” The Holocaust survivor also criticized the United States’ decision not to bomb the Auschwitz concentration camp.

    Blitzer said he only discovered his father’s recorded testimony about his Holocaust experiences as he was filming the documentary.

    “If we don’t learn from those blunders and those mistakes and horrible experiences, we’re bound to repeat those kinds of horrors down the road,” Blitzer said. “So that’s why it’s so important [and] when people come to Washington I recommend it all the time — go visit the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. I drive by there all the time on the way to work and for me it’s very, very personal to see what’s going on as the son of Holocaust survivors and as the grandson of four grandparents who were murdered by the Nazis during World War II.”

    Blitzer worked for years as a journalist in Israel, writing for a number of Israeli news outlets, and was also an editor at AIPAC. In 2014, he dived deep into his Jewish heritage and family roots for a special CNN report that took him around Israel, Poland and his hometown of Buffalo, NY.

    “Never Again: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, A Tour with Wolf Blitzer” is available for viewing to pay television subscribers via CNN.com, CNN apps, and Cable Operator Platforms.

    The program aired less than a week after CNN’s special report, “Rising Hate: Antisemitism in America,” hosted by fellow Jewish CNN anchor Dana Bash.

    Share this Story: Share On Facebook Share On Twitter

    Let your voice be heard!

    Join the Algemeiner

    Algemeiner.com

    This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
    Email a copy of to a friend
    This field is hidden when viewing the form
    This field is hidden when viewing the form
    This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.