Auschwitz

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The infamous welcoming gate at Auschwitz, with the inscription Arbeit macht frei (“Work brings freedom”), placed there by Major Rudolf Hoss, the camp commandant, possibly as mockery, a false promise or, it has been argued, as a kind of mystical declaration that self-sacrifice can at least bring spiritual freedom. The same slogan also hung at entrances in other concentration camps, such as Dachau, Gross-Rosen, Sachsenhausen and Terezin. Needless to say, nobody at these camps was ever released for working hard.