ARBEIT MACHT FREI
work
doesn't
kill
anyone
idleness
does
if you don't have work to do,
to have productive leisure,
while you rest,
peel potatoes, or break rocks.
cut logs for the fire...
you will live happily your whole life...!
...
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Categories:
frei, allusion, analogy, humorous, perspective,
Form: Burlesque
Arbeit Macht Frei
A victim of the Holocaust
Laments so many lives were lost
Their Christian friends
Can't make amends
Although they all have double-crossed
...
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Categories:
frei, word play,
Form: Limerick
Abattoir Macht Frei
I arrived here in the morning,
I do not know the hour,
For I was taken without warning,
And did not have the power
To resist those men in grey.
From the box car I was led,
Through a great big iron gate.
"Abattoir Macht Frei", it read
So for freedom I now wait.
But that was yesterday.
I’ve had no food nor sleep
...
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Categories:
frei, analogy, animal, death, holocaust,
Form: Verse
Arbeit Macht Frei
The first weakening of night
picks out telephone lines,
black against sky.
The eyelid of a garage door
lurches laboriously up.
A car coughs blue breath.
With aerosols and plastic scrapers
clandestine delights of frostwebs
are raked to chemical sludge.
Starter motors whine.
Windscreens cloud with pain.
Gears grind teeth.
An electric train
gingerly
utters
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Categories:
frei, society,
Form: Free verse
Arbeit Macht Frei
We were afraid
Constantly
Afraid
They could
Kill us at any moment
For no reason suitable
For taking a life
Little food
Little water
Little salvation
Nothing but work
After all
Arbeit Macht Frei
Is what we lived by
Every day
Forced to live by it
To have it mockingly
Branded into us
But
It
...
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Categories:
frei, abuse, fear, holocaust,
Form: Free verse
Arbeit Macht Frei
Where are these cattle cars taking us to?
Instantly a stench travels through my pours.
A sign translates “Work sets you free.” For Jews?
Children are shaking from their very core,
men on one side, woman on the other.
We’re stripped of belongings, to the showers.
Chaos breaks out, a scream from my mother.
Nobody runs to their loved ones,
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Categories:
frei, death, fear,
Form: Sonnet
Arbeit Macht Frei
ARBEIT MACHT FREI *
Each metro station should have this sign.
Descend to the hot abyss, to the line.
Steel monster vomits people to the platform,
Ingests another load, another swarm.
Roar of machines. No protest voice -
Up the Mauthausen
...
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Categories:
frei, workpeople, people,
Form: Couplet