CNN International anchor Christiane Amanpour issued an apology for comparing the Trump administration to Kristallnacht, the 1938 pogrom that occurred in Germany and Austria and became a precursor to the Holocaust.
On Monday, Amanpour addressed the comparison she made between Trump’s “modern-day assault” on “facts, knowledge, history, and proof” and the two-day massacre in which nearly 100 Jews were murdered, more than 30,000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps, and more than 1,400 synagogues were burned down. The comparison received criticism from Trump officials, the Anti-Defamation League, and Israeli government officials.
“And finally tonight, a comment on my program at the end of last week. I observed the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, as I often do — it is the event that began the horrors of the Holocaust. I also noted President Trump’s attacks on history, facts, knowledge, and truth. I should not have juxtaposed the two thoughts,” Amanpour said.
“Hitler and his evils stand alone, of course, in history,” she added. “I regret any pain my statement may have caused. My point was to say how democracy can potentially slip away, and how we must always zealously guard our democratic values.”
The comments came after Israeli Consul General Anat Sultan-Dadon wrote a letter to CNN Executive Vice President Rick Davis requesting Amanpour and the network apologize.
On her show last week, the 82-year anniversary of Kristallnacht, Amanpour described the pogrom as “the Nazis warning shot across the bow of our human civilizations that led to genocide against a whole identity, and in that tower of burning books, it led to an attack on facts, knowledge, history, and proof,” which she said was akin to the “modern-day assault on those same values by Donald Trump.”
“There’s no analogue between the Holocaust and what’s taking place in the U.S. Pundits & politicians should avoid such facile comparisons,” the ADL said on the matter. “They are offensive & insensitive to the memory of the #Shoah,” using the Hebrew word for Holocaust.
CNN did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
