- published: 28 Feb 2016
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"Arbeit macht frei" (German pronunciation: [ˈaɐ̯baɪt ˈmaxt ˈfʁaɪ]) is a German phrase, literally "labour makes (you) free," meaning "work sets you free", "labour/work liberates" or "labor brings (you) freedom". The slogan is known for having been placed over the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust, including most infamously Auschwitz I, where it was made by prisoners with metalwork skills and erected by order of the Nazis in June 1940.
The expression comes from the title of a novel by German philologist Lorenz Diefenbach, Arbeit macht frei: Erzählung von Lorenz Diefenbach (1873), in which gamblers and fraudsters find the path to virtue through labour. The phrase was also used in French ("le travail rend libre!") by Auguste Forel, a Swiss ant scientist, neuroanatomist and psychiatrist, in his "Fourmis de la Suisse" ["Ants of Switzerland"] (1920). In 1922, the Deutsche Schulverein of Vienna, an ethnic nationalist "protective" organization of Germans within the Austrian empire, printed membership stamps with the phrase Arbeit macht frei. It was adopted in 1928 by the Weimar government as a slogan extolling the effects of their desired policy of large-scale public works programmes to end unemployment. This use of the phrase was continued by the Nazi Party when it came to power in 1933.
Frei is a village, island, and former municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is located in the present-day municipality of Kristiansund between the Kvernesfjord and Freifjord. The island of Frei is connected to the city of Kristiansund by the Omsund Bridge, and it is connected to the mainland by the Freifjord Tunnel (part of the Krifast system).
The island of Frei has an area of 62.5 square kilometres (24.1 sq mi). The village of Frei (or Nedre Frei) is located on the southern end of the island, 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) southwest of Kvalvåg. Frei's largest village is Rensvik, the former municipal center, which is located at the north end of the island.
The Viking-era Battle of Rastarkalv, between Haakon I of Norway and the sons of Eric I of Norway, took place here in 955 AD.
The municipality was named after the island of Frei (Old Norse: Freiðr). The meaning of the name is unknown, but is maybe derived from fríðr which means "good" or "beautiful". Until 1889, the name was written Fredø.
Roll a
Gasper
The guard said he could stay alive but he shovelled and burned his friends to die
People to die
Oh the gate read
Arbeit macht frei
In her rollers
And a gasper
She cleaned the steps of a mean street where no policeman walked the beat
Her old man
He don't like blacks or queers
Yet he's proud we beat the Nazis...
How queer