Analyze Elie’s statement “no sooner had we taken a few more steps then we saw the barbed wire of another camp. This one had an iron gate with the overhead inscription: ARBEIT MACHT FREI. Work makes you free. Auschwitz.” Why is this ironic?

This is the infamous concentration camp Auschwitz . The famous iron gate sign holds such dark irony. The prisoners only worth is seen as ability to do work that makes them suffer. The work they do only makes them miserable, sickly, and weak: the work enslaves them instead of setting them free.