In our building, there’s a bulletin board in the mail room. It usually has fairly innocuous stuff on it – co-op board notices, misdelivered mail, guitar lessons, ‘Anybody got a cleaning lady they can recommend?’, like that. Over the years we’ve lived here I’ve paid it almost no attention.
But we were checking our mail today & my wife says, Look at this. Tacked to the bulletin board was a business card that simply said
WORK SETS YOU FREE.
No name, no address, no phone number, nothing else.
I have to admit, the point was lost on me until Jane repeated it, in German: Arbeit Macht Frei. The words at the entrance to Auschwitz. Somebody went to the trouble (& perhaps the expense) to print up at least one business card, guaranteed to upset people, frighten people, piss people off, & posted it anonymously, with very little possibility of witnessing any reaction. A random act of stupid. At the very least, this coward, who probably lives in my building, thinks this kind of shit is funny. Outside of Mel Brooks, very few people can make Nazis funny. This, in particular, I don’t think is funny. Jane is even less amused than I am, but then, she would be; she has the relatives with the tattoos on their arms.
I really don’t want to ascribe any political motive to this. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just an asshole doing what assholes do.
But I don’t get it.
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