The Shocking Analogy Between Nazi and Communist Labor Camps
Besides the obvious crimes that took place in them, a sinister similarity deserves attention.
It may come as a surprise for many: nazi Germany was not the only European nation that established concentration and forced labor camps. Granted, Solzhenitsyn wrote about the Gulag system in the USSR, but were there concentration camps in other countries? The answer is yes. The communist regimes in Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Poland all built concentration camps as a tool to get rid of any form of opposition. And so did communist Czechoslovakia.
In today’s Czech Republic, you can still visit the museum “Památník Vojna” near Příbram, about 70km south of Prague. At the top of the access gate, a sign reads “Prací ke svobode,” which means, literally, “Work towards freedom.” A sinister reminder of the ominous “Arbeit Macht Frei” (”Work sets you free”) placed at the gates of nazi concentration and extermination camps, most notably, Auschwitz.
Unfortunately for those imprisoned in the Czechoslovak camps, the work they would do had no direct correlation with the possibility of being released. Příbram itself was one of three large camp complexes (in addition to Jáchymov and Horní Slavkov, closer to the German border) where prisoners were put to…
