I want to explain something that perhaps isn't clear to some people.
Jews deported to Auschwitz were told they were sent to a work camp. The "Arbeit Macht Frei" was part of that deception. The sign pretended to say "work hard and you'll survive". But this was a lie.
1/ https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1296753847147339778
The sign was part of Nazi deceptive measures designed to ensure Jews arriving to the camps by deportation trains do not riot and cooperate, to get them to obey to the instructions they were given, and to get them to the gas chambers in a quick and orderly manner. 2/
So what the sign says is genocide. Not exploitation, not some "work the poor" ideology. The sign, in its distorted use by the Nazis, says mass murder of people because of their race. Using it in any other context or meaning is disrespectful to the victims. 3/
I want to thank @OwenJones84 for calling this out and saying the right thing here, for which he got quite a lot of abuse.
I'd even say that using Arbeit Macht Frei as "they will work you to death" is a form of Holocaust denial, because most of those who perished in Auschwitz were not worked to death; they were murdered and gassed, and that's what the sign is remembered for. https://twitter.com/YairWallach/status/1296853941230227458?s=20
You can follow @YairWallach.
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