Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Man wearing ‘Camp Auschwitz’ shirt among mob who stormed U.S. Capitol

An unidentified man wearing a sweatshirt reading “Camp Auschwitz” was among the violent mob that entered the U.S. Capitol Wednesday after a series of rallies that involved antisemitic conspiracy theories.

The man was visible in video stills from inside the Capitol, including a report from ITV, a British television channel. He was wearing what appeared to be a hooded sweatshirt with “Camp Auschwitz” printed above an image of a skull and crossbones, with the phrase “work brings freedom” printed below.

The phrase is a translation of “arbeit macht frei,” a slogan that appeared above the entrance of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The offensive outerwear was perhaps the most overt sign of antisemitism during the violent demonstration this afternoon, which came after a day and a half of inflammatory rallies promoting the false claim that the Democrats stole the November election from Presidential Donald Trump.

Several notorious white supremacists attended the rally outside the Capitol and were among those who broke through police lines to enter the building.

Arno Rosenfeld is a staff writer at the Forward. Follow him on Twitter @arnorosenfeld or email [email protected].

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.