Arbeit macht frei
Channel: all the knowledge of the universe PRINCIPIA
Date: 2021-12-05

Arbeit macht frei, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2906 / CC BY SA 3.0

#German_words_and_phrases
#Signage
#Terminology_of_Nazi_concentration_camps
#Unfree_labor_during_World_War_II
#Holocaust_terminology
#Euphemisms
#Quotations_from_literature
#1870s_neologisms
Slogan displayed at Auschwitz Theresienstadt in the Czech Republic Arbeit macht frei （[ˈaʁbaɪt ˈmaxt ˈfʁaɪ] （listen）） is a German phrase meaning "Work sets you free" or "Work makes one free".
The slogan is known for appearing on the entrance of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.
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.
The phrase was also used in French （le travail rend libre!） by Auguste Forel, a Swiss entomologist, neuroanatomist and psychiatrist, in his Fourmis de la Suisse （English: Ants of Switzerland） （1920）.
In 1922, the Deutsche Schulverein of Vienna, an ethnic nationalist "protective" organization of Germans within Austria, printed membership stamps with the phrase Arbeit macht frei.
The phrase is also evocative of the medieval German principle of Stadtluft macht frei （"urban air makes you free"）, according to which serfs were liberated after being a city resident for one year and one day.
Gross-Rosen KZ Sachsenhausen Dachau The slogan Arbeit macht frei was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps.
The slogan's use was implemented by Schutzstaffel （SS） officer Theodor Eicke at Dachau concentration camp and then copied by Rudolf Höss at Auschwitz.
The slogan can still be seen at several sites, including over the entrance to Auschwitz I where the sign was erected by order of commandant Rudolf Höss.
The Auschwitz I sign was made by prisoner-labourers including master blacksmith Jan Liwacz, and features an upside-down B, which has been interpreted as an act of defiance by the pr...