He additionally met with a lady who as a 3-year-old little one was subjected to experiments by the infamous Nazi physician Josef Mengele.
“This can be a story that has to remain alive, it is a story that we now have to inform over and over,” he stated after his go to to the positioning of the loss of life camp, talking in a former synagogue that now’s dwelling to the Auschwitz Jewish Heart Basis.
He stood alongside Simon Bergson, the muse’s chairman, who was born after the struggle to Auschwitz survivors, and talked about his circle of relatives historical past.
“I used to be the son of a person who fought within the Nazi struggle and was a soldier,” the 75-year-old Schwarzenegger stated in Oswiecim, the city the place the Auschwitz web site is situated.
He stated he and Bergson, who’re shut in age, have been united of their work.
“Let’s combat prejudice collectively and let’s simply terminate it as soon as and for all,” Schwarzenegger stated.
Bergson added: “Arnold and I reside proof that inside one era hatred will be shifted totally. Governor, thanks for becoming a member of us right here right this moment.”
His go to to the positioning in southern Poland, which was below German occupation throughout WWII, was his first and got here as a part of his work with the Auschwitz Jewish Heart Basis, whose mission is to combat hatred via training.
He obtained the muse’s inaugural “Combating Hatred” award in June for his anti-hatred stance on social media. He stated he couldn’t attend in individual then as a result of he was filming a brand new motion collection in Canada and was in a “COVID bubble.”
He vowed that Wednesday’s go to wouldn’t be his final.
“I’ll be again,” he stated.
Schwarzenegger, who’s initially from Austria, has spoken brazenly previously about his father, Gustav Schwarzenegger, being a Nazi soldier in the course of the struggle.
He advised Russians in a video posted on social media in March that they have been being lied to in regards to the struggle in Ukraine and accused President Vladimir Putin of sacrificing Russian troopers to his personal ambitions.
In that video he introduced up painful recollections about how his personal father was lied to as he fought, and the way he returned to Austria a damaged man, bodily and emotionally, after being wounded at Leningrad.
Historians estimate that round 1.1 million folks have been killed at Auschwitz in the course of the struggle. Round 1 million of them have been Jews. Some 75,000 Poles have been killed there, in addition to Roma, Russian prisoners of struggle and others.
Gera reported from Warsaw.
