“Vaccination makes you free” sign displayed at anti-vaccination rally in Poland

A sign bearing the words “Vaccination makes you free” was displayed at an anti-vaccination rally in Poland on Tuesday. 

The sign references the slogan which sat atop the gates to Auschwitz concentration camp, one of the most notorious concentration camps where over a million people were murdered, that read: “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Makes You Free”).

Members of Poland’s far-right Confederation Party were photographed posing with the banner at the demonstration, which drew criticism from Tal Ben-Ari Yaalon, Israel’s chargé d’affairs in Warsaw. Ms Yaalon tweeted: “Most of my father’s family was murdered in @Auschwitz along with more than a million other victims. This sign is disrespectful to their memory, and I find it unbelievable that such Holocaust distortion can happen 300 km from where the original sign stands.”

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum also denounced the display, writing: “‘Arbeit macht frei’ is one of the icons of human hatred. The exploitation of the symbol of suffering of victims of #Auschwitz, the largest cemetery in Poland and the world, is a scandalous expression of moral decay. It is particularly embarrassing when it is done by Polish MPs.”

The Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, commented that the scenes on display were a “dramatic and dark picture of how the holy memory of monstrous German crimes can be harmed.” 

During the summer, “Jews are behind the pandemic” and “rule the world” chants were heard at an anti-vaccine rally in Głogów, Poland.

Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination networks have become known as hotbeds of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.

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