Arnold Schwarzenegger tweeted a 12-minute video last Monday evening (March 6, local time) in which he denounced anti-Semitism and called on people to fight against it. In the clip, he reports, among other things, on experiences during a visit to Auschwitz – and on growing up as the son of an SA main troop leader in Austria.
The video is aimed at “all those who have chosen the path of hate. Please listen”. In the video he wanted to talk about “the increasing hatred and anti-Semitism that can be observed worldwide”. The Austrian, who has lived in the USA since 1968, begins by talking about the “crimes against humanity” – a term coined by Hannah Arendt that now includes a criminal offense under international criminal law – during the Holocaust. The person who is naturalized in the USA does not address a specific country.
“How can we ensure that something like this never happens again?”, a question that was also dealt with in post-Nazi Germany philosophy. Schwarzenegger quotes the great thinkers. “The demand that Auschwitz not be repeated is the very first thing in education,” wrote Theodor W. Adorno in 1966 in “Education after Auschwitz“. “You know, after a visit to Auschwitz, nobody would question why ‘Never again’ is the battle cry of those who want to prevent a repetition of the Holocaust,” Schwarzenegger said.
“It happened, and consequently it can happen again: that is the essence of what we have to say,” warned former Auschwitz prisoner and survivor Primo Levi in 1986, shortly before his death the following year, as Schwarzenegger explains. Continuing with the message, the former bodybuilder addresses those who may have potentially chosen the path of hate and a “loser ideology”. He has hope that you can get rid of it.
This is my message to anyone who has chosen the path of hate. Please listen. pic.twitter.com/P0VCDqPeb6
– Arnold Schwarzenegger) March 6, 2023
In this country, anti-Semitic crimes are steadily increasing. On February 28, the “daily News“that violence against Jews in Germany has continued to increase compared to the sad peak of over 3,000 anti-Semitic offenses in 2021. The final figure for 2022 is not yet available, but based on the evaluation of the three quarters so far and the development in recent years, it can be assumed that a new high will be reached. 2020 were still 2531 countedin the past four years there has been a steady increase in numbers.