High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! "Arbeit macht frei" (German pronunciation: ) is a German phrase, literally "work makes (one) free," meaning "work sets you free" or "work liberates". The slogan is known for having been placed over the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust, including most infamously Auschwitz I, where it was made by prisoners with metalwork skills and erected by order of the Nazis in June 1940.