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Liebe Macht Frei

“Arbeit macht frei” is a physical symbol of the atrocities committed by the Nazis during WW2.

The sign bearing those words, recently stolen from its position above the main gate of the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp, translates as, “Work sets you free”.[1] It’s significance goes much further than its innocuous meaning.

This camp was the brainchild of Heinrich Himmler. It was designed as the location for the “final solution of the Jewish question in Europe.”

Over one million human beings died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Ninety percent of them were Jews.

This week marks the first anniversary of the last major Israeli incursion into Gaza that led to the killing and maiming of thousands of Palestinians. It was the culmination of two years of blockade that has left Gaza little better than a concentration camp. Surrounded by barbed wire, the Strip has only three entrances: the southern Rafah crossing into Egypt, the northern Erez crossing and the eastern Karni crossing, both controlled by Israel. The Karni crossing is used solely for cargo.

Today, aid agencies published a report condemning the international community for not doing enough to bring an end to Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. According to Jeremy Hobbs, Oxfam’s director:

…….world powers have failed and betrayed Gaza’s ordinary citizens”.[2]

The report calls for more pressure on Israel to end its ‘illegal collective punishment of Gazans’, and states that while conditions were bad before last December’s incursion, matters are now infinitely worse. Rebuilding of properties destroyed by the Israeli military has barely begun due to a lack of materials; food and water are in short supply. Despite Israeli assurances that medical supplies are allowed into the Strip, people are dying from a lack of basic medical care.

In short, conditions within Gaza are appalling. The international community sits on its hands and does nothing. The bully America ensures its allies comply with its own policy of total Israeli support, while that nation continues the inhumane and brutal ethnic cleansing of its Palestinian neighbor.

Jews everywhere should bow their heads in shame that their community, their homeland nation, has become no better than the German Third Reich that once persecuted them so mercilessly.

The sign that reads, “Arbeit macht frei”, has now been recovered from those who stole it. Perhaps it should not be returned to its previous position at the gate to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Instead, let it be erected above the Erez crossing into Gaza, so that Jews everywhere will be reminded that their past suffering can never serve to justify inflicting similar atrocities on others, equally innocent.

[1] “Auschwitz sign theft ‘ordered from abroad'” BBC, December 22nd 2009

[2] “World ‘failed Gaza over Israeli blockade’ – aid groups” BBC, December 22nd 2009

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4 Replies to “Liebe Macht Frei”

  1. I know refugees from this horrific oppression who tell me that Palestine is one big concentration camp with little food, no medical supplies and with children being born into forced slavery and hopelessness. It is unconscionable.
    The world can be truly evil. Auschwitz taught nothing.
    XO
    WWW

  2. A really sad state of affairs… Where is Saudi Arabia with all it’s wealth and money??? I am sorry, It is time for the Arab world to take a stand! Where is the outrage? Where is the outcry?

    I am sorry, but I blame the Arab world as well….

  3. Yes the world can be evil, RJ. Abuse and horror begets abuse and horror, always has and sadly, probably always will.

    I came in to wish you a Happy Charistmas, which seems rather out of place – but
    never mind. Happy Christmas RJ and Mrs RJ!

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