Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Makes You Free) | Holocaust Education | USHMM

Holocaust historians and others still debate why Nazis displayed the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Makes You Free) on concentration camp entrance gates. The phrase was originally the title of a popular German novel from 1873 that proclaimed the power of labor to rehabilitate criminals, however, the vast majority of camp inmates were imprisoned for who they were, not what they had done. Watch to learn more, including Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi’s take on the phrase.