Auschwitz I Work Makes You Free Gate

Following the September 1939 German invasion and occupation of Poland the Silesian town of Oswiecim and most of the rest of this area of Poland were absorbed by the German Reich. At this time the Germans changed Oswiecim’s name to Auschwitz. Within months a group of Polish barracks outside Auschwitz was chosen for locating a concentration camp for Polish prisoners. In the spring of 1940 Rudolf Hoss became the new camp’s first commandant. On June 14, 1940 the first prisoners arrived – 728 Poles from Tarnow. The camp gate (pictured here) features the infamous inscription “Work Makes You Free”. Each morning the work detail marched through this gate to take part in horrendous physically exhausting labor at various sites near the camp used for fueling and supplying the Nazi economy and war machine. (Picture taken by Steven Mercatante on September 5, 2014).