The slogan is known for appearing on the entrance of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. ==Origin== The expression comes from the title of an 1873 novel by German philologist Lorenz Diefenbach, Arbeit macht frei: Erzählung von Lorenz Diefenbach, in which gamblers and fraudsters find the path to virtue through labour.
An example of ridiculing the falsity of the slogan was a popular saying used among Auschwitz prisoners: Arbeit macht frei (Work makes you free) durch Krematorium Nummer drei (Through Crematorium Number Three) In 1933 the first political prisoners were being rounded up for an indefinite period without charges.
The slogan was first used over the gate of a "wild camp" in the city of Oranienburg, which was set up in an abandoned brewery in March 1933 (it was later rebuilt in 1936 as Sachsenhausen).
The slogan was first used over the gate of a "wild camp" in the city of Oranienburg, which was set up in an abandoned brewery in March 1933 (it was later rebuilt in 1936 as Sachsenhausen).
The original gate posts survive in another part of the camp, but the slogan sign no longer exists. In 1938 the Austrian political cabaret writer Jura Soyfer and the composer Herbert Zipper, while prisoners at Dachau Concentration Camp, wrote the Dachaulied, or The Dachau Song.
The signs' psychological impact was tremendous. ==Thefts of Arbeit Macht Frei signs== The Arbeit Macht Frei sign over the Auschwitz I gate was stolen in December 2009 and later recovered by authorities in three pieces.
The original sign is now in storage at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and a replica was put over the gate in its place. On 2 November 2014, the sign over the Dachau gate was stolen.
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Page generated on 2021-08-05