The number of incidents increased by more than 34% in 2021, hitting the highest number ever recorded by the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism. Recent years have seen a rise in antisemitic incidents in the U.S. In his video, Schwarzenegger spoke directly to those who are "at the crossroads" of going on a path driven by hate, saying that such a path may seem easy, but that those who follow it "will not find success at the end of that road." Choosing to focus on hate, he said, is essentially choosing to create a scapegoat instead of taking responsibility. "It's the feeling of history, of millions of voices that were silenced decades ago, begging you, begging you, not just to look at their shoes, but to spend a few hours in them." "Let me tell you something, the weight on your back hits you at the very beginning, heavier than any squat I've ever done. Arnold Schwarzenegger makes his first visit to the former Nazi German Auschwitz Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in Brzezinka, Poland on September 28, 2022. the crematorium, where the Nazis tried to erase all of their atrocities," Schwarzenegger recalled seeing. the gas chambers with scratches in the walls from the fingernails of people who tried to hold onto life. "The suitcases never claimed by the prisoners who were told to remember exactly where they'd left their belongings so they could retrieve them after they were finished with their showers. It was the largest of such Nazi camps during the Holocaust in World War II, where more than 1.1 million people were killed.įrom the moment you walk through the site, "you feel a tremendous weight," he said, describing the powerful impact of seeing the physical remnants of those who had been killed. He said the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination and concentration camp in Poland serves as a prime example of where harnessing hate can lead, he said. ".In the end, it didn't really matter why they joined. They were lied to and misled into a path that ended in misery," Schwarzenegger said. "They felt like losers, not only because they lost the war, but also because they fell for horrible, loser ideology. The book is now stored at the Austrian State Archives, home to millions of Nazi-era documents. 20, 2003, which he carried in his left shirt pocket while fighting for the Germans during World War II. His father, he said, was one of the "broken men" after the war who were "riddled with guilt." Gustav Schwarzenegger's soldiers book and other documents, pictured on Wednesday, Aug. Schwarzenegger pointed to his father, Gustav Schwarzenegger, who, he has said in the past was a Nazi soldier and part of the siege of Leningrad in World War II that famously lasted nearly 900 days. "So I want to speak with you before you find your regrets at the end of that path." Schwarzenegger's speech and September visit to Auschwitz come after the Anti-Defamation League reported in 2021, the number of documented reports of harassment, vandalism and violence directed against Jews hit a modern record high (since at least 1979) in 2021, with 2022 trending the same way."I don't know the road that has brought you here, but I've seen enough people throw away their futures for hateful beliefs," he said in the video. Searching for ways to numb your pain and misery. "The other path is easy, much easier," he continued. "You don’t have to change anything, everything in your life that you aren’t happy about can be somebody else’s fault.You will end up broken. You will be stronger than you've ever known." You will realize you have the greatest power of all - the power to change your own life. You may lose some friends who want to hold onto their weak beliefs, but as you pull yourself away from that anger and that hate, eventually, you will start to feel empowered. You will have to force your brain to think in new ways. One of them is going to be the harder one today. You have two paths in front of you right now. Embrace the discomfort, enjoy the struggle. "If you want to grow as a person, you really have to make friends with pain. "Your mind and your character are no different than your body and your muscles," Schwarzenegger insisted. Returning his focus to those who have embraced a hateful worldview - either due to their upbringing or due to being drawn into extremist online rabbit holes - Schwarzenegger encouraged them to improve themselves and their own lives rather than blame others, with the former bodybuilder using gym metaphors to do so.
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