Arnold Schwarzenegger received the Award of Courage from the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles and called on people to “confront” anti-Semitism following the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,400 people.
During the 15th annual gala on Monday night, the 76-year-old actor and former California governor was awarded the honor for his years of work combating anti-Semitism and bigotry amid a rise in anti-Jewish attacks across the world, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Schwarzenegger said as the son of a Nazi soldier, Gustav Schwarzenegger, he wanted to fight “for inclusion against hatred and speak out about hatred, and how wrong it is to not look at everyone’s life equally. And to attack each other because of someone’s religion and religious background or their color or their sex, whatever it is.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger Honored By Holocaust Museum LA: “We Have to Speak Up and Confront” Antisemitism https://t.co/F8zbjhEvxS
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) November 7, 2023
“I felt it was very important, especially since I come from a country that is known to be a big part of the Second World War and had the most vicious Nazis during the Second World War and beforehand,” he added. “I thought it is important to go out and to let people know that the next generation doesn’t have to be the same, that the next generation can change.”
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The “Terminator” star said he experienced anti-Semitism in his own home from his father, who slammed the Jewish publisher of a bodybuilding magazine Arnold was interested in. He said years later when he made it to America, it was that same publisher who set him up with housing and money, something he shared at the time with his father.
“From that moment on, I said to myself, ‘I have to go and fight that, I have to go and speak out about hatred, I have to go and get involved in this issue,'” Schwarzenegger said. “And the more I became a celebrity, the more I became a movie star and a bodybuilding star and all that, the more I felt like, ‘Oh, I have another power.'”
Schwarzenegger said, “[T]here’s all this chatter out there and all this stuff and all this negativity and hatred that we have to speak up and confront them. The more we speak out about that issue [anti-Semitism], the better it is.”
“So every day you have to talk about that, you have talked about it over and over again because we cannot let them get away with those lies and with this hatred,” he added. “You’ve got to talk to them, and talk them down and let them know that the only way to go is through love… hatred you never ever win; love in the end always wins.”
Related: Schwarzenegger On His Father Being A Nazi: Was ‘Sucked Into A Hate System Through Lies And Deceits’