George Clooney on Syrian refugees: U.S. not doing well at 'remembering who we are'

BERLIN, March 16 (UPI) -- George Clooney and wife Amal Clooney visited Syrian refugee families in Germany as a move to bring greater awareness to their ongoing plight.

In a newly released video of the meeting, produced by the International Rescue Committee, Hail Ceasar! actor George Clooney told his family's story of emigration, saying his Irish descendants were also running away from war.

"I'm of Irish descent and in America, 100 years ago, we were refugees -- my family," Clooney told the group in Berlin last month. "The Irish were treated terribly in America for a period of time, and not accepted. And America learned to accept all of these ideas. It's what our country is, is a country of immigrants. And we have not recently done a very good job of remembering who we are."

The refugees shared their stories from Syria, which has been war-ravaged for about five years. Attendee Mona Zeadan, a Damascus native, described gunfire and telling her children she didn't want them to die.

"There was shooting between the two sides. I sat in the corner and I got ready to die. Wissam and Judy, my children, were shaking. I hugged them and told them I didn't want them to die while scared like that," Zeadan said.

Amal Clooney described her family's own plight as refugees during the gathering, saying they ran away from Lebanon in the 1980s and were "lucky enough to be expected by a European country in 1982 when the violence was really bad."

"I hope you will be able to go back to a safe and free Syria," she added.

Over 11 million people have been displaced as a result of a civil war in Syria since 2012. The IRC works to deliver aid to those caught in between the two warring sides and report having provided assistance to nearly 900,000 people in northern Syria alone last year.

"We always look around at the end of these tragedies and say if we knew, we would have done something and the reality is, of course we know," Clooney is heard saying in a voice over during the IRC clip. "What is shocking to me is not that it happened but its continuing to happen for five years."