In Auschwitz, the inscription above the gate was made in the camp's locksmith's shop. Kurt Müller, outlined the desired shape on the ground, and after bending the tubes and cutting out the letters with a spot weld, he attached the inscription to the tubes. The letters were cut out by a prisoner, a master of artistic blacksmithing, Jan Liwacz (No. 1010). The prisoners probably deliberately assembled it incorrectly, turning the letter "B" upside down, which was an act of resistance to the slogan proclaimed at the gate. However, in the accounts of some prisoners, one can read that it was a coincidence.
After the liberation of the camp, Soviet soldiers loaded the inscription on a railway wagon that was to go east, but the former prisoner Eugeniusz Nosal (camp number 693) and an accidental carter bribed the guard guarding the train with a bottle of moonshine and hid the original inscription in the town hall. When the State Museum in Oświęcim was established, the inscription returned to its place at the gate.
The inscription on the gate in Auschwitz I became one of the most important symbols of the German system after the war