Entrance gate with "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign. (photo taken 1980's)

In the 1940's "Arbeit Macht Frei" or "Work Sets You Free" reminded Europeans of the 1920's widespread unemployment until German National-Socialist Work Programs starting in 1933 created jobs to build everything from rail-engines to the Autobahn thereby freeing people from hunger and poverty.

From 1941 to '44 inmates working in wood furniture construction and sewing shops as well as at the Monowitz chemical plant received slightly more food and were respected by other inmates. Workers respected the words but people who did as little work as possible ridiculed them.

After the war Holocaust promoters said the sign was a ruse to beguile inmates destined to be murdered, but the sign actually meant exactly what it said.