Arbeit macht frei
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Template:Lang (Template:IPA) is a German phrase translated as "Work makes one free" or, more idiomatically, "Work sets you free" or "Work liberates".
The phrase originates from the title of an 1873 novel by Lorenz Diefenbach and alludes to John 8:31–32. Following the Nazi Party's rise to power in 1933, the phrase became a slogan used in programs implemented to combat mass unemployment in Germany.<ref name="Slogan">Template:Cite web</ref>
Post World War II, it is primarily known for its use above the entrance of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.<ref>Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem, 1990, vol. 4, p. 1751.</ref> Because prisoners performed forced labor under horrific conditions, the phrase has come to be understood as meaning that the only way for prisoners to gain a sort of freedom was to work until they died.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Origin
The expression comes from the title of an 1873 novel by the German philologist Lorenz Diefenbach, Template:Lang, in which gamblers and fraudsters find the path to virtue through labour.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> "The truth will set you free" (Template:Lang) is a statement of Jesus found in John 8:32—"And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" (KJV).
The phrase was also used in French (Template:Lang) by Auguste Forel, a Swiss entomologist, neuroanatomist and psychiatrist, in his Template:Lang (Template:Langx) (1920).<ref name="Fourmis de la Suisse">Template:Cite web</ref> In 1922, the Template:Lang of Vienna, an ethnic nationalist "protective" organization of Germans within Austria, printed membership stamps with the phrase Template:Lang.Template:Cn
The phrase is also evocative of the medieval German principle of Template:Lang ("urban air makes you free"), according to which serfs were liberated after being a city resident for one year and one day.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Use by the Nazis
In 1933, the first communist prisoners were being rounded up for an indefinite period without charges. They were held in a number of places in Germany. The slogan Template:Lang was first used over the gate of the Oranienburg concentration camp,<ref>Template:Cite bookTemplate:Pages needed</ref> which was set up in an abandoned brewery in March 1933 (it was later rebuilt in 1936 as Sachsenhausen).<ref name="BMF">Template:Cite web</ref>
The slogan's use was part of the 1937–1938 reconstruction by Template:Lang (SS) officer Theodor Eicke at Dachau concentration camp.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> From Dachau, it was copied by the Nazi officer Rudolf Höss, who had previously worked there. Höss was appointed to create the original camp at Auschwitz, which became known as Auschwitz (or Camp) 1 and whose intended purpose was to incarcerate Polish political detainees.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Laurence Rees, Auschwitz: a New History</ref>
The Auschwitz I sign was made by prisoner-laborers including master blacksmith Jan Liwacz, and features an upside-down 'B', which has been interpreted as an act of defiance by the prisoners who made it.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="KrakowDirect">Template:Cite web</ref>
In The Kingdom of Auschwitz, Otto Friedrich wrote about Rudolf Höss, regarding his decision to display the motto so prominently at Auschwitz: Template:Blockquote
In 1938, the Austrian political cabaret writer Jura Soyfer and the composer Herbert Zipper, while prisoners at Dachau, wrote the Template:Lang or "The Dachau Song". They had spent weeks marching in and out of the camp's gate to daily forced labour, and considered the motto Template:Lang over the gate an insult.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The song repeats the phrase cynically as a "lesson" taught by Dachau.
An example of ridiculing the slogan was a popular saying used among Auschwitz prisoners: Template:Verse translation
It can also be seen at the Gross-Rosen and Theresienstadt camps, as well as at Fort Breendonk in Belgium. At the Monowitz camp (also known as Auschwitz III), the slogan was reportedly placed over the entrance gates.<ref>Denis Avey with Rob Broomby The Man who Broke into Auschwitz, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 2011 p.236</ref><ref>Freddie Knoller with Robert Landaw Desperate Journey: Vienna-Paris-Auschwitz, Metro, London, 2002, Template:ISBN p.158</ref> However, Primo Levi describes seeing the words illuminated over a doorway (as distinct from a gate).<ref>Levi, Primo, trans. Stuart Woolf, If This Is a Man. Abacus, London, 2004, p. 28.</ref> The slogan appeared at the Flossenbürg camp on the left gate post at the camp entry. The original gate posts survive in another part of the camp, but the sign no longer exists.<ref>KZ-Gedenkstaette Flossenbuerg</ref>
The signs are prominently displayed, and were seen by all prisoners and staff— all of whom knew, suspected, or quickly learned that prisoners confined there would likely only be freed by death. The signs' psychological impact was tremendous.<ref name=Friedrich/>
Thefts of Template:Lang signs
The Template:Lang sign over the Auschwitz I gate was stolen in December 2009 and later recovered by authorities in three pieces. Anders Högström, a Swedish neo-Nazi, and five Polish men were jailed as a result.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The original sign is now in storage at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and a replica was put over the gate in its place.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
On 2 November 2014, the sign over the Dachau gate was stolen.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It was found on 28 November 2016 under a tarp at a parking lot in Ytre Arna, a settlement north of Bergen, Norway's second-largest city.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
See also
- Extermination through labour
- Template:Lang (idiomatically, "everyone gets what he deserves"), a motto used at the Buchenwald concentration camp.