“We can all do our part to terminate hate if we are willing do the work and educate ourselves. Never again,” said Schwarzenegger online. Source: Auschwitz Memorial.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has visited Auschwitz concentration camp and while there met with a holocaust survivor and vowed to help fight prejudice.
The actor was the recipient of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation (AJCF) Award for Fighting Hatred which saw him take a short trip to the Nazi death camp.
While there he met with Lydia Maksimovicz who at three years old was subjected to tortuous experiments under Nazi doctor Josef Mengele.
“People like her can help us to never stop telling that story about what happened here 80 years ago… This is a story that has to stay alive,” he said at the end of his visit.
Today I toured @AuschwitzMuseum with @AuschwitzJCF. This is a story that has to stay alive, that we have to tell over and over again. We can all do our part to terminate hate if we are willing do the work and educate ourselves. Never again. pic.twitter.com/FHq2VMhHZP
— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) September 28, 2022
He also met the son of holocaust survivors, Simon Bergson, who is now head of the ACJF who said that it’s important to keep the conversation around the Holocaust going.
“Arnold and I are living proof that within one generation hatred can be shifted entirely. Governor, thank you for joining us here today.”
The former California Governor shared his own family history that involved the World War II.
“I was the son of a man who fought in the Nazi war and was a soldier,” he said.
He mentioned that it’s important to “fight prejudice together” and urged everyone to “just terminate it once and for all”.
The recipient of @AuschwitzJCF Award for Fighting Hatred @Schwarzenegger visited the @AuschwitzMuseum today to honor all the victims of the camp and deepen his knowledge about history that would help him fight against prejudices nowadays. pic.twitter.com/6tt6Nebela
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) September 28, 2022
In the visitors book at the Auschwitz Museum he wrote “I’ll be back” with officials giving reason as to why he wrote that.
“This visit was planned to be relatively short. The inscription was meant to be a promise to return for another and more in-depth visit,” they said.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was awarded for his commitment to ending hate crime back in June but was unable to attend as he was stuck in Canada in a “COVID bubble”.
The AJCF is an organisation that aims to educate people on the holocaust and advocates to put an end to hate crime.
