Extermination camps and work: Good Grief!
by
kati
06/07/2009, 12:30 PM #
Concentration camps were extermination camps (for Jews, Gypsies, people of color, the Disabled, Gays, and political opponents or "potential opponents" of the Nazi regime, and of course the children of all of the above). Mass murder had and has nothing to do with work. The slogan on the gate under which the prisoners passed through before being sorted out for a quick death in the gas chambers or a slower one as inmates doing such work as burying the dead while being slowly starved to death, standing at attention for hours on end and being shot if they collapsed, being bitten by dogs, experimented on without any anesthetic and other forms of torture, actually also "murders" the dignity that any of us feel work deserves (that dignity comes from making a living through it, so slavery in prison and elsewhere doesn't count).
As for the exact German words and their meaning who the hell cares! (I can tell you though, it had absolutely nothing to do with Jewish ideas of work and good deeds --never ever would the Nazi use any Jewish ideas).
