Excellent photo of the gate into the Auschwitz I camp
It is hard to get a photo of this gate because there is a steady stream of tourists walking through it. I took the photo below, by sneaking into the camp early in the morning, before it was officially open for tourists.
My 2005 photo of Arbeit macht Frei gate
Note that my photo above was taken in the early morning hours, before the gate was officially open to visitors. Note that two people had already gone through the gate, so I was confident that I would not be arrested.
Here is the answer to the question in the title of my blog post. “Arbeit macht Frei ” means that “work will set you free” in the spiritual sense — but not literally.
The inmates at the Auschwitz 1 camp, which is the camp that is shown in the photo, were mainly non-Jewish political prisoners. Jewish prisoners were sent to the Auschwitz II camp, also known as Birkenau. It was at Birkeanu that more than a million Jews were killed, allegedly in gas chambers, beginning in February 1942.
Holocaust survivors leaving Auschwitz after a visit to the camp where they had been held as prisoners
In January 1941, the Auschwitz I camp had been designated a Class I camp, where prisoners had a chance to be released.
Only Class I camps had the “Arbeit Macht Frei” slogan over the gate. Other Class I camps were Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Flossenbürg and Gross-Rosen.
Buchenwald was a Class II camp and Mauthausen was a Class III camp; neither of these camps had the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign.
The six death camps (Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Chelmno, Majdanek and Auschwtiz II, also known as Birkenau) did not have the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” on the gate into the camp. Allegedly, no one in any of these camps was ever set free.
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