The sign "work shall set you free"

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I read a couple of days ago that on some Nazi concentration camps (including Auschwitz) there was a sign "work shall set you free". Quite frankly, I am surprised about it. I mean, that sign sounds positive and encouraging, while Nazis believe that Jews are forever tainted by their blood line and there is nothing they could do to fix that. Does anyone have any explanation as to why they would put such a sign?

My guess had been that is was meant to be taken literally by new prisoners to get them to work harder. However, this motto has it's own wikipedia page: Arbeit macht frei.

From Wikipedia:

In The Kingdom of Auschwitz, Otto Friedrich wrote about Rudolf Höss, regarding his decision to display the motto so prominently at the Auschwitz entrance:

He seems not to have intended it as a mockery, nor even to have intended it literally, as a false promise that those who worked to exhaustion would eventually be released, but rather as a kind of mystical declaration that self-sacrifice in the form of endless labor does in itself bring a kind of spiritual freedom.[16]

Rudolf Hoss is not Rudolf Hess.

That Hoss guy is nutty as a fruitcake?

Even with spiritual freedom it is also surprising. A common belief among Christians is that nobody can attain spiritual freedom unless they come to Christ. Now I realize that "common" doesn't mean that all Christians would believe it -- there are some Christians that believe that Jews can be saved without coming to Christ. But since Nazis were antisemitic, one would assume that Nazis would hold the former belief rather than the latter.

But then again, Nazis were rejecting some of the key Christian dogma. For example, Hitler was involved in the accult, which Christianity would condemn. So could it be that -- ironically enough -- Nazi were among the most "tolerant" when it comes to who is saved and who isn't -- despite being "intolerant" when it comes to other things? So, on the one hand, they would argue that Jews are so despicable here on earth that they should all be killed -- yet, on the other hand, they will "also" argue that Jews can be saved spiritually, even if they don't believe in Jesus. That kind of combination of opposite beliefs would be pretty ironic, although its logically possible.

Do you think this is what it was?

What about that sounds positive and encouraging in a context where people were forced to work and unsure of whether they'd ever be set free from the camp?

They were forced to work, then were murdered.

If the issues is that they are "unsure" whether they would be set free -- and the answer is no -- why were they told that they would be?

Was it just a lie? But you don't need to lie to them to get them to work: they were forced to work regardless.

If you say the point of the lie is to make them feel better, that is also strange: Nazis don't sound like the kind of people to want to make Jews feel better.

The Nazis also had marching bands playing at the gates...to welcome the next cattle train load of prisoners. Happy brass music playing to mask the sound prisoners inside screaming from being tortured to death. And to just lull the folks into a false sense of security. And they had the sign over the gate (still there at Auschwitz) also to lull you into a false sense of security. But the phrase takes on another meaning when you started life in Auschwitz being worked to death.

Figure it out.

Even an autistic can connect the dot on this.

Well, there doesn't seem to be a lot of need to "lull" them in, seeing that they were "forced" in regardless (for one thing, they weren't armed and Nazi soldiers were).

Or are you saying that -- despite not being armed -- they might still prevail over Nazis since they have a lot more to lose, hence they would have more adrenaline released? But if they put out that sign, they might still not want to go there, but their adrenaline levels won't be as high so they won't be able to prevail?

Just try to put yourself in the situation those cattle-car folks were in.

I would say most “knew” they were all set for a terrible fate, then were given false “hope” through the marching bands.

The people who designed the Holocaust were nuts, to say the least. “Depraved” is not a strong enough word for which to describe them.

Read up on the Holocaust. Watch the films. If you have any moral sense, you will not deign to intellectualize the Holocaust, nor justify it through some sort of “logic” or whatever.

Nothing in that context, but if taken out of context, it does. I think part of the idea might have been to calm those who were still at least somewhat in a denial of what was happening to them so that they would potentially cause less trouble.

As Krafty said you need to learn more about the Holocaust before you can talk about it like you're doing here.

Before I let you go, and let you embark on educating yourself through movies, books, and documentaries, I will say a few last things.


The victims were rounded up from the cities and villages where they lived. Told simply that they were "being relocated". They were then all shipped in the fright trains in cattle cars to the camps.

Upon arrival they were generally herded into the camps while Nazi commandant would silently cull the people coming off the trains into two groups-those slated for instant execution, and those healthy enough to exploited as slave labor. The later could murdered slowly over weeks and months through starvation, and being worked to death. The later being encouraged to find "freedom" from their imprisonment through "work". Before arriving the victims didn't know their exact fate. But many on the trains figured that they were exploited as slaves, but not necessarily murdered.

The point being the Nazi staff of the camps needed a smooth running operation. So they had to lull folks so that they would be cooperative. Just like airports have to handle the crowds going through security smoothly and efficiently today. They made an industry of death comparable in scale and efficiency to any other industry. You cant have gun fights with crowds of folks coming off trains every few minutes . Gotta keep the trains and crowds both moving.

Thats an interesting analogy. Are you trying to say that the analogue of "work" in concentration camp is having to cooperate with airport security and the analogue of the "encouraging sign" is looking forward to buying all this nice food while you wait for the plane? It certainly worked in my case (back in the good old days when I didn't have to worry about COVID 19, that is).

Don't over-think it. Each person involved in displaying that sign likely had a different reason for his or her participation -- some wanted to taunt the Jews, some wanted to encourage them, some want to give them false hope just so it could be dashed to the ground later.  Some of those who actually put up the sign may have done so against their will (i.e., at the muzzle of a gun).

I wish the concentration camp inmates had the experience of people getting on planes at airports.

I didn't say they are the same. I know concentration camp inmates died a horrible death while people going on the planes are out for a nice vacation. But, at the same time, I can still see some common human psychology trends that might be at work both times. Kinda like asymptomatic sufferers of COVID 19 have the same underlying processes as people that die horrible death from it. I am not trying to minimize the suffering, just trying to analyze commonalities and differences in order to study the topic.