We do not yet know the motives of those who took down and made off with the infamous Arbeit Macht Frei sign at the gates of Auschwitz concentration camp last week. Does it have a value? As scrap, probably not, but as a symbol of the darkest days not just of the 20th century but arguably any era of human history, its value is incalculable.
I researched the origins of this aphorism for my book, Blood Sweat and Tears, The Evolution of Work, soon to be republished as The History of Work. There are two popular misconceptions about the slogan: one, that it was mocking those imprisoned in the camp and, two, that it was directed principally at the Jews.
The phrase was first adopted by the Nazis within the entrance gate to Dachau, the earliest of the concentration camps, established just outside Munich in 1933. This prototype camp set up by Heinrich Himmler, then Munich’s chief of police, was designed initially to imprison political prisoners – mostly socialists – and other “undesirables”.
Arbeit Macht Frei – variously translated as “work brings freedom” or “work sets you free” had nothing to do with Nazi cynicism or the taunting of prisoners and everything to do with the way the National Socialists had plundered the values of the protestant work ethic and shaped them for their own purposes. Some of those imprisoned in the early days of the camps were indeed freed after a period of time so the message was genuinely intended to convey a spirit of hope, however meagre.
Arbeit, meaning work, was one of those words, like the word volk (people) that was adopted and used in grammatical constructs to create an aura of wholesomeness around National Socialism.
Another common source of confusion for those who have not visited Auschwitz is the camp itself since there is more than one camp in the whole complex. While more than a million Jews met their deaths at Auschwitz, the vast majority of them were killed in the Birkenau camp, often soon after stepping down from trains that came in to the camp from across Europe. These people never saw the Arbeit Macht Frei sign since that belonged to the original Auschwitz concentration camp constructed earlier, in June 1940, some two miles from the Birkenau complex.
As Laurence Rees made clear in his book, Auschwitz, the Nazis and the ‘Final Solution’, the camp or camps had a complex history. Auschwitz-Birkenau was part prison-of-war camp, part concentration camp, part labour camp and part extermination camp. Its role as a labour camp explained the notorious rail head selections when those picked out for labour were parted from their relatives who would then be marched off immediately to the gas chambers.
Who knows why anyone should want to own that symbolic sign above the Auschwitz gateway? But in its own way the sign has earned a familiarity just as potent, if not more so, than many of the world’s most familiar landmarks. That sign, like the camp itself, must be preserved as a memorial, an inanimate witness, to one of the greatest crimes in history.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
And we like to think we're important......
Sometimes you see something that puts things in perspective - like this. Cosmic.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Book rustling
Another one of my books has arrived (see story below). Again no note inside and the writing on the package was a childlike scrawl, not the way I would expect a book to be packaged by a professional retailer. I think Amazon should be investigating these sellers. If the book is being sold new at less than the cost to produce it, there are only two possible sources - an unwanted review copy or theft. I'd call it book rustling.
Christmas decorations and the Law of Eternal Buggeration
Christmas is all about timing. There should be a law against putting up decorations at any time before the second week of December. Those who jump the gun in November should be thrown in to jail without trial and not released before the New Year, by which time they would already be thinking about Valentine’s Day and looking for Easter eggs, having booked their summer holidays last July.
Sadly only one law applies at this time of year and that is the law of eternal buggeration. The effects of this law are progressive and cumulative. For example, when we called by the local garden centre for our Christmas tree this morning it seemed no more than a minor inconvenience to discover it was closed until May.
Another garden centre close by would do fine, we thought, until we saw the prices. Christmas trees priced at £50 each might seem reasonable if you’re a banker who has just cashed his Christmas bonus or an MP who can claim it on expenses. But for mere mortals it smacks of daylight robbery. No wonder the place was empty apart from the odd pin-striped suit.
We moved on to the outskirts of town to a Christmas tree farm that had a big range of trees from £10 to upwards of £50 with various colour codes denoting the prices. But how to remember the price against the colour? George solved the problem, photographing the list with his mobile phone. Teenagers do have their uses after all.
The place was teeming with people and cars. One chap was holding up a tree in the throng, calling vainly for his wife.
“Nice tree,” I said.
“I know. But we’ll have to look at thirty more before she’s happy,” he said, casting the tree aside and walking off, shoulders hunched, to rejoin the melee.
We didn’t spend too long choosing and found a reasonable specimen for £25. When we got it home we found the trunk was a bit bent at the bottom, giving the tree a pronounced lean in its pot. Mind you, in more than thirty years we have never been able to erect our tree without a pronounced lean, owing to the law of eternal buggeration.
The principles of this law mean that when we go in to the loft and get the Christmas lights out of their box, they don’t provide so much as a flicker when they’re plugged in, even though they worked perfectly when put away the previous year. No amount of familiarity with the law of eternal buggeration is capable of preparing me for the crushing sense of disappointment when I flick the switch and nothing happens. Deep down, I know what’s going to happen. Perhaps this is what creates the churning anxiety that accompanies this ritual. Something in our evolutionary journey instilled in us an innate – but foolish – optimism.
So now I’m left with that other tiresome ritual of fixing the lights. I cast around for spares. I know we have them since two Christmases ago Gill tried to preempt this seasonal problem by getting some extra lights. Have you ever tried to buy spare Christmas lights bulbs? Logic would tell you that the spares would be available at the shop that sells the light packs. But that is a logic that fails to account for the law of eternal buggeration.
No, Gill had to search them out online and that’s what she is doing again just now - delivery date after Christmas. But there is hope. Through a process of trial and error George has managed to get every fourth light blinking, so we have lights of sorts. The decorations are looking a little careworn like their owners by this stage of the day. Now just where did we put those spare lights? Common sense would point to the light box. But, as we know, there’s a law against that.
By late afternoon the Christmas tree is fully tinseled and baubled and the lights (well, some of them) are winking away merrily. I'm trying to tell myself that the tree is filling the hall with fragrant wafts of pine wood. But no-one else thinks that. There's a pungent smell all right, but it doesn't need the family to tell me that if this is pinewood then it bears a remarkable similarity to something less wholesome.
It recalls that traditional German carol, O Tannenbaum:
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Much pleasure dost thou bring me!
For every year the Christmas tree,
Brings to us all both joy and glee.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Why must you smell of cat pee!
Sadly only one law applies at this time of year and that is the law of eternal buggeration. The effects of this law are progressive and cumulative. For example, when we called by the local garden centre for our Christmas tree this morning it seemed no more than a minor inconvenience to discover it was closed until May.
Another garden centre close by would do fine, we thought, until we saw the prices. Christmas trees priced at £50 each might seem reasonable if you’re a banker who has just cashed his Christmas bonus or an MP who can claim it on expenses. But for mere mortals it smacks of daylight robbery. No wonder the place was empty apart from the odd pin-striped suit.
We moved on to the outskirts of town to a Christmas tree farm that had a big range of trees from £10 to upwards of £50 with various colour codes denoting the prices. But how to remember the price against the colour? George solved the problem, photographing the list with his mobile phone. Teenagers do have their uses after all.
The place was teeming with people and cars. One chap was holding up a tree in the throng, calling vainly for his wife.
“Nice tree,” I said.
“I know. But we’ll have to look at thirty more before she’s happy,” he said, casting the tree aside and walking off, shoulders hunched, to rejoin the melee.
We didn’t spend too long choosing and found a reasonable specimen for £25. When we got it home we found the trunk was a bit bent at the bottom, giving the tree a pronounced lean in its pot. Mind you, in more than thirty years we have never been able to erect our tree without a pronounced lean, owing to the law of eternal buggeration.
The principles of this law mean that when we go in to the loft and get the Christmas lights out of their box, they don’t provide so much as a flicker when they’re plugged in, even though they worked perfectly when put away the previous year. No amount of familiarity with the law of eternal buggeration is capable of preparing me for the crushing sense of disappointment when I flick the switch and nothing happens. Deep down, I know what’s going to happen. Perhaps this is what creates the churning anxiety that accompanies this ritual. Something in our evolutionary journey instilled in us an innate – but foolish – optimism.
So now I’m left with that other tiresome ritual of fixing the lights. I cast around for spares. I know we have them since two Christmases ago Gill tried to preempt this seasonal problem by getting some extra lights. Have you ever tried to buy spare Christmas lights bulbs? Logic would tell you that the spares would be available at the shop that sells the light packs. But that is a logic that fails to account for the law of eternal buggeration.
No, Gill had to search them out online and that’s what she is doing again just now - delivery date after Christmas. But there is hope. Through a process of trial and error George has managed to get every fourth light blinking, so we have lights of sorts. The decorations are looking a little careworn like their owners by this stage of the day. Now just where did we put those spare lights? Common sense would point to the light box. But, as we know, there’s a law against that.
By late afternoon the Christmas tree is fully tinseled and baubled and the lights (well, some of them) are winking away merrily. I'm trying to tell myself that the tree is filling the hall with fragrant wafts of pine wood. But no-one else thinks that. There's a pungent smell all right, but it doesn't need the family to tell me that if this is pinewood then it bears a remarkable similarity to something less wholesome.
It recalls that traditional German carol, O Tannenbaum:
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Much pleasure dost thou bring me!
For every year the Christmas tree,
Brings to us all both joy and glee.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Why must you smell of cat pee!
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
The mysteries of book pricing
I have just had a book published. It is called The Future of Work. I think it is very good but then I would as the author. For a more objective appraisal you would need to read a review or, better still (as far as I am concerned), read it yourself.
However, I don't want to discuss the content of the book in this blog. I want to discuss the price. You will see from the link above that the retail price of the book is £25 - a bit steep you may think for a book of 272 pages with no colour pictures.
I discussed the price with the publisher when we did the deal at the outset. He told me - and he knows much more about book pricing than I could hope to know - that £25 was right for this kind of book in the market. I spent a year on the book so I would have no trouble justifying that for myself, but as a regular reviewer of what the market calls management books I would say that something around £17 would be about right for this type of book.
Funnily enough, if you go to Amazon.co.uk, you can find it at the discounted price of £17.49. That seems reasonable. That's a good deal.
I wanted to get a few books for myself, however, to give away or to simply have in stock at home. The publisher offered a discount of 40 percent on 40 books which would make them £15 each plus £5 postage, so a bit cheaper than the Amazon deal.
But, wait a minute. Something isn't quite right here. If I go on to Amazon I can also find other retailers selling the book new (and two selling it second hand even though it only came out yesterday! One of these has it priced at £18.42, the other at £44.38!).
One of the retailers selling the book new - Ammobox - was offering it at £5.80 plus £2.75 postage, so that's £8.55 delivered to my door. The deal for another at Middoman was £8.90 and I could get one, inclusive of postage, from Londonderry books for £8.74.
If my book is going so cheaply I want to get it. I know what's in it and that's a bargain! I tried to order 40 books from Ammobox but it said it had just one in stock. The same applied to the other two dealers. So I have ordered a book from each of them.
I went back to my publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, and asked how it was I could get the book cheaper by some margin, inclusive of postage, from an online dealer than I could buy it with discount from the publisher?
"Bulk orders," they said.
"But I was placing a bulk order and this is much much cheaper."
"We'll look into it," they said.
The bulk order explanation doesn't seem to make much sense since each of these dealers said they had just one book in stock and I was unable to buy more.
There must be an explanation somewhere. If not, I'm going to have to continue buying up all the cheap copies I can find (you can't see the three I mentioned above now as I've bought them, but take my word for it, they were there).
Or perhaps I should just stick to writing them.
However, I don't want to discuss the content of the book in this blog. I want to discuss the price. You will see from the link above that the retail price of the book is £25 - a bit steep you may think for a book of 272 pages with no colour pictures.
I discussed the price with the publisher when we did the deal at the outset. He told me - and he knows much more about book pricing than I could hope to know - that £25 was right for this kind of book in the market. I spent a year on the book so I would have no trouble justifying that for myself, but as a regular reviewer of what the market calls management books I would say that something around £17 would be about right for this type of book.
Funnily enough, if you go to Amazon.co.uk, you can find it at the discounted price of £17.49. That seems reasonable. That's a good deal.
I wanted to get a few books for myself, however, to give away or to simply have in stock at home. The publisher offered a discount of 40 percent on 40 books which would make them £15 each plus £5 postage, so a bit cheaper than the Amazon deal.
But, wait a minute. Something isn't quite right here. If I go on to Amazon I can also find other retailers selling the book new (and two selling it second hand even though it only came out yesterday! One of these has it priced at £18.42, the other at £44.38!).
One of the retailers selling the book new - Ammobox - was offering it at £5.80 plus £2.75 postage, so that's £8.55 delivered to my door. The deal for another at Middoman was £8.90 and I could get one, inclusive of postage, from Londonderry books for £8.74.
If my book is going so cheaply I want to get it. I know what's in it and that's a bargain! I tried to order 40 books from Ammobox but it said it had just one in stock. The same applied to the other two dealers. So I have ordered a book from each of them.
I went back to my publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, and asked how it was I could get the book cheaper by some margin, inclusive of postage, from an online dealer than I could buy it with discount from the publisher?
"Bulk orders," they said.
"But I was placing a bulk order and this is much much cheaper."
"We'll look into it," they said.
The bulk order explanation doesn't seem to make much sense since each of these dealers said they had just one book in stock and I was unable to buy more.
There must be an explanation somewhere. If not, I'm going to have to continue buying up all the cheap copies I can find (you can't see the three I mentioned above now as I've bought them, but take my word for it, they were there).
Or perhaps I should just stick to writing them.
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