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13 August 2012

Mail Online to unemployed graduates: “Arbeit Macht Frei“

There are easier phrases to rehabilitate.

By Alex Hern

RightMinds, the Mail Online’s comment hub, contains a piece by Dominique Jackson. Writing on the “problem” of unemployed graduates with high expectations, she argues that:

The German slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei” is somewhat tainted by its connection with Nazi concentration camps, but its essential message, “work sets you free” still has something serious to commend it. There is dignity to be gained from any job, no matter how menial, and for young people at the start of their careers, there are valuable lessons to be learned from any form of employment, whether that is on the factory floor, on a supermarket till or in the contemporary hard labour camp of a merchant bank or law office.

Wow. Good luck with the rehabilitation of that phrase.

Update

The Daily Mail is practicing its usual “editing by Twitter”, it seems. The piece is a month old – originally published on July 13 – but has mysteriously been updated in the last few minutes to remove the offending paragraph.

Padraig Reidy managed to save a screenshot of the original piece (click for big):

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Hilariously, at least at the time of writing, the piece was so hastily edited that the font size in the new paragraphs is noticeably different from the old.

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