In a new video, Arnold Schwarzenegger discussed the rise of antisemitism globally, describing the Nazis of his father’s generation as “losers” who were “misled into a path that ended in misery.”
In the clip, the actor and former governor of California described how his father, a Nazi party member, was a broken man after the war who turned to alcohol to cope. He cautioned viewers that “there has never been a successful movement based on hate.”
“Think about that: the Nazis? Losers. The Confederacy? Losers. The apartheid movement? Losers. And the list goes on and on,” Schwarzenegger said. “I don't want you to be a loser. I don't want you to be weak… despite all my friends who might say, ‘Arnold, don’t talk to those people. It’s not worth it.’”
He continued: “it's easier to make excuses that the Jewish people conspired to hold you back than it is to admit that you just needed to work harder. It's easier to hate than it is to learn. It's easier when someone challenges you to get hurt feelings and to go and find some echo chamber that will tell you that you are right and they're wrong. But remember easier isn't better. It isn't when you spend your life looking for scapegoats, you take away your own responsibility, you remove your own power, you steal your own strength.”
“Nobody who has chosen the easy path of hate has gotten to the end of that road and said, ‘Oh what a life.’ No, they die as miserably as they lived,” he said.
Schwarzenegger addressed those falling into the path of antisemitism in the video: “I don’t care what they say. I care about you. I think you’re worth it. I know nobody is perfect … I can understand how people can fall into a trap of prejudice and hate… No matter how far you’ve gone, I want you to know you still have a chance to choose a life of strength. You have to fight the war against yourself … The [hate] path is easier – you don’t have to change anything, everything in your life that you aren’t happy about can be somebody else’s fault … [But] you will end up broken. I don’t want you to go through all that.”
He recalled that “a woman who survived the horrors of Auschwitz helped me find the light.”
“I spent some time with her. She told me that the Nazis could conquer cities and countries, they could take her freedom, her friends, her family, even her life. But they could never conquer her mind,” he said.
“So the bottom line is I don't care how many hateful things you may have written online. I don't care how often you have marched carrying that hateful flag or what hateful things you may have said in anger, there's still hope for you. There's still time for you. Choose strength, choose life, conquer your mind. You can do it.”