The apparently Nazi-inspired sign at the Packard Plant in Detroit that drew outrage has been removed.
It’s unclear who got rid of the letters that spelled “Arbeit Machet Frei,” which means “Work will Make you Free” in German. They were still up earlier in the day, but are now gone.
Earlier, Jewish groups had expressed concern over the placing of a sign at the Packard Plant that was similar to one placed at the entrance to the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz.
“This graffiti is offensive to Jews and particularly to Holocaust survivors,” said Heidi Budaj, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, the leading Jewish civil rights group in the U.S.
As reported first by the Free Press on Monday, new letters placed at the Packard Plant read “Arbeit Macht Frei,” the same German words at the entrance to the concentration camps in Poland where Jews were forced to work and were murdered.
Stephen Goldman, executive director of the Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus in Farmington Hills, said: “This message is offensive on so many levels. It … needs to be taken down.” He noted that many Holocaust survivors live in Michigan.
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
4 Responses
It shoild be a siman: May all our enemies go the way of the Packard — out of business!
It seems to me they were comparing the owners of the factory to the Nazis. How is that anti-semitic?
We must start teaching our children and Bochurom, that all of mankind, adults and children, are precious in the eyes of our Creator, Heshem Yisborach.
Halevai, that our children should see, that we worry about the well-being of every person and we make an effort, not to exclude any person, from our Teffilohs, especially on Rosh Hashanah. We Daven for Yidden and Non-Yidden who are R”L sick.
That will strenthen our empathy and concern for every Human Being, and that will be M’oirer Rachmei Shomayim.
HKB”H will, Never-Again, instigate any Haterd or Pogroms or Holocausts against us.
I feel like this needs a follow up: Who hung this and why? We can theorize, for instance, that plant workers hung a protest sign implying that they are being treated like Camp Prisoners? Whatever it is it’s obviously beyond ignorant and insensitive, but I want to trace this to the source. I hate the term and implication of
“re-education,” but IMNTBHO somebody here needs some!