Since beginning to read Night, by Elie Wiesel, my 9th grade class has been mesmerized. This, in large part due to the experience and effort of student teacher, Ms. Schiff. She comes in every day ready to impart the lessons Wiesel has left us through his memoir; the students come in each day ready to learn them.
Arbeit Macht Frei.
"Work sets you free."
We discussed these infamous words one day as we read about Elie first seeing them upon entrance to Auschwitz.
Arbeit Macht Frei.
I could tell the students were uneasy. They knew what it didn't mean.
A student mentioned hearing that recently the sign had been stolen.
Miss Schiff did her homework-- and then gave us some.
"Read these articles," she said. "Let's hear what you have to say. Blog about it."
Arbeit Macht Frei.
I recalled discussing this act of theft in G&T last year and I remembered my heart sinking,
"What next?" I had thought to myself...
Tonight, the article I have for Miss Schiff's assignment reads in part: the theft was "an attack on the remembrance of the Holocaust...a desecration." It goes on to say that apparently the theives had split the sign into three; perhaps to sell it three times and make three separate profits.
They must have been thinking:
Money sets you free.
Poor them.
Because we know differently.
The truth sets you free, and the truth is only this:
love, compassion, dignity-- for all and to all.
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