What did they mean by this?

What did they mean by this?

Seriously.

work makes free
they wanted to make them believe that after working very very very hard, one day they would have been free
sry for bad english

Note that I'm only somewhere around B1 in German, take this all with a grain of salt.
>arbeit
Simple enough word, means work in the context of labour, and work in general I guess.
>machen
More complex, but essentially it means 'cause', 'produce', 'make', as opposed to tun which just means 'do', as in what one does in general.
>frei
Free

Work causes/makes freedom. (it's translated as "Work will set you free" a lot but it's easier to understand a literal translation)

Possibly an ironic message (working one's self to death)

Or, if they work hard enough they will be freed.

Or, by working they will give up their old ways. A lot of survivors came out with much less mindless greed, from what I understand. As in, less wasteful. Like Great Depression survivors.

Arbeit meanings:
[1] selbstgewählte, bewusste, schöpferische Handlung
[2] ausführende, zweckgerichtete Tätigkeit
[3] Tätigkeit, die erledigt wird, um Geld zu verdienen
[4] Verhältnis, bei dem man eine Tätigkeit gegen Geld verrichtet
[5] kurz für: Klassenarbeit, eine schriftliche Prüfung in der Schule
[6] Volkswirtschaft: einer der drei Produktionsfaktoren
[7] Physik: Energie, die durch Kraft über einen Weg auf einen Körper übertragen wird
[8] etwas, das Anstrengung, Mühe kostet
[9] Ergebnis einer Tätigkeit; Produkt, Werk
[10] Ort, an dem die Tätigkeit gegen Geld verrichtet wird

machen:
Bedeutungen:
[1] in einen bestimmten Zustand versetzen
[2] umgangssprachlich: herstellen, produzieren, anfertigen
[3] machen, dass: veranlassen
[a] früher auch mit Infinitiv
[4] umgangssprachlich: tun, tätigen, handeln, ausführen, erledigen
[5] euphemistisch für:
[a] koten
[b] urinieren
[6] regional für einfüllen, auffüllen
[7] ostmitteldeutsch, mit Hilfsverb „sein“: den Wohnort wechseln, vom Wohnort wegziehen
[8] umgangssprachlich; es machen: koitieren, Sex haben
[9] verursachen, hervorrufen
[10] durch geschäftliche Tätigkeiten verdienen
[11] umgangssprachlich, mit „sich“: eine meist positive Entwicklung nehmen; sich aufwärts entwickeln, wachsen
[12] salopp: eine bestimmte Rolle übernehmen
[13] umgangssprachlich, abwertend: etwas oder jemanden mimen, eine bestimmte Haltung nach außen hin einnehmen
[14] mit „sich“: sich in eine bestimmte Umgebung gut einfügen, gut irgendwohin passen
[15] umgangssprachlich auch mit in etwas: sich auf einem bestimmten Geschäftsfeld betätigen
[16] umgangssprachlich: eine bestimmte Summe Geldes betragen
[17] bei mathematischen Operationen (insbesondere bei Addition, Multiplikation und Subtraktion, Division): ergeben
[18] den nachfolgend umschriebenen Laut von sich geben
[19] regional: gehen
[20] beginnen

Frei:
[1] unabhängig, nicht gefangen, nicht versklavt
[2] ungehindert
[3] frei von: ohne
[4] uneingeschränkt
[5] kostenlos
[6] nicht besetzt
[7] nicht eingegrenzt, unbegrenzt
[8] verfügbar, ohne Arbeit oder Verpflichtung
[9] freiberuflich, freischaffend
[10] von einem Körperteil: unbedeckt
[11] veraltet: unverheiratet

"Labor liberates"

Sounds a lot less damning than "We burn Jews".

according to wikipedia it's based on philosophical and religious works that state that you can only reach true freedom with diligence. it's propaganda to get people to be selfless and put the benefit of the group above the personal benefit (health). meaning that working yourself to death is the most honorable thing to do. in the context, it was also hinting that if you do what you're told you might suffer a little less. there was also a parole from himmler that was on the walls in dachau, sachsenhausen and neuengamme that wrote:

Es gibt einen Weg zur Freiheit. Seine Meilensteine heißen: Gehorsam, Fleiß, Ehrlichkeit, Ordnung, Sauberkeit, Nüchternheit, Wahrhaftigkeit, Opfersinn und Liebe zum Vaterland!“.

there's one way to freedom.
it's stages are named: obedience, diligence, honesty, order, cleanliness, sobriety, truthfulness, the will to sacrifice and love for the fatherland."

this goes even further in glorifying self-abandonement. it was a popular theme in nazi germany. it was also asked from the german people. especially the hitler youth was a target to instill this "will to sacrifice".

1. THAT WOULD TRANSLATE BETTER AS "LABOUR SETS FREE", OR AS "LABOUR FREES" THAN AS "WORK SETS YOU FREE".

2. WORK/ENERGY IS ACTUALIZATION OF POTENTIAL/POWER, SO, BY ACTUALIZING ONE'S POTENTIAL/POWER, ONE BECOMES WHOLE AND PERFECT —FREE FROM NATURAL PRECONDITIONS.

WORK —OF WHICH LABOUR IS A MANIFESTATION— ROUSES BEING FROM LATENT INERTIA, MOTILIZING ITS POTENTIAL.

Go motilize your potential somewhere else, fag

Thats not true. Arbeit is nearly the same as english work

No, it only means work in the sense of labour (as a noun, as a verb it is more vague).

Schoolwork is not Arbeit, for example. Building a wall is Arbeit.

One does not Arbeit on a paper, though I suppose that phrasing could be used as a joke (I am laboring upon this paper)

yes you can most definitely an einer dissertation arbeiten or an seinen hausaufgaben arbeiten

I said it translates best to labour as a noun.

Arbeit could be a job where you do paperwork though.

arbeit means force

so force creates free

You have to remember that Dachau was originally for "reforming" political prisoners. they were poorly treated, beaten and generally abused but many of them were eventually freed

The *implication* I got from learning about the Holocaust in school (not sure if they ever explicitly came out and said this, but it was pretty clear what they meant), was that it was claiming that the camps were just labor camps, and those who worked hard would be rewarded, even though the plan was for many if not all of the prisoners to eventually be killed. The reasoning on the Nazis' side was obviously to give the prisoners some incentive to work hard, as if they knew (or were allowed to think) that they were eventually going to be killed anyway, trying to escape would seem like a better choice. Whereas telling them that they would be rewarded for hard work both meant that they'd be able to get more use out of the prisoners before killing them, and also gave them hope so they wouldn't feel that escape was their only chance of survival.

>be German society
>all these damn jews won't work
>they just sit around all day stirring up shit
>the same problem the Egyptians had with them
>Jews won't work
>send them all of to labor camp
>first time a jew sweats in Germany outside the court room
>jews turn this into some kind of hollywoodesque snuff film
>exaggerate so completely the whole thing becomes satire of itself

Same thing in Israel actually. Are jews allergic to a hard day's work?

Paperwork is labour.

one time I talked to a spirit through a Ouija board (used it alone, had tears running down my face as it moved because it was so weird) and when I asked it's name it spelled "Arbeit". I didn't know what it meant but it was a German word for "work" or "job". I forgot about this, was my ancestor killed in the camps trying to communicate with me?

it was an ironic statement on the notion that jews are traditionelly not active in manual labour and thus the forced labour of the concentration camps was the first real exposure to real work for the stereotypical jew who lets others do the work for him.

We know what the words mean. Duh. The intent of the sign is the real question.

seeThe first camp to have this statement over its gate was Dachau in the 30s when it housed political criminals

I thought it was based on the stereotype that jews don't like doing physical labour. So they thought it was a cheeky comment. (this is what i believe)

>>all these damn jews won't work
How did they make a living?

The 'Arbeit macht frei' slogan was placed during the holocaust though