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Holocaust survivor's grandson helps take down Auschwitz-inspired graffiti.
Robin Schwartz
I Contributing Writer
T
o this day, the ominous slogan
"Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Makes
Free) hangs over the entrance to
Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp
in Poland where 1.3 million people died;
many were starved or murdered in gas
chambers. Last week, a hand-painted ver-
sion of the same sign with similar lettering
was discovered posted in the windows of
the Grand Boulevard overpass at Detroit's
abandoned, dilapidated Packard Plant.
The letters were spray painted in red on
what appeared to be aluminum sheets fas-
tened to the window frame of the defunct
automotive facility, according to Roni
Leibovitch, 33, of Detroit.
The data analyst at a marketing and
technology consulting firm took it upon
himself to help rip the sign down along
with Randy Wilcox of Harper Woods,
an artist who runs the urban photo blog
detroitfunk.com. The two men, who do
not know each other, both showed up at
the site in the late afternoon on Feb. 5 with
the same idea — to remove the offensive
message.
10 February 14 • 2013
JN
"When I saw it in person I thought
someone definitely took time to plan
it:' Leibovitch says. "The dimensions of
the aluminum sheets were pretty well
measured to fit the space of the frame.
Whatever the motive was, it came out of
ignorance. It shouldn't have been created
to begin with and the planning of it made
it that much more appalling:'
Leibovitch was born in Israel and moved
to Michigan in 1988. He's the grandson of
Holocaust survivor, Tzvia Leibovitch, 94,
of Netanya, Israel. She lost her parents and
four sisters in the Nazi death camps but
managed to make it out of Auschwitz alive.
"To me, it was disturbing to see those
words because my grandmother is a survi-
vor:' Leibovitch said. He first learned about
the sign in a Detroit Free Press article.
"My immediate reaction was anger:' he
added. "I felt like something should be
done [to remove it] very quickly"
After work, Leibovitch left his office in
Midtown Detroit and drove 15 minutes
northeast to the sprawling Packard Plant
site. He says by the time he got there,
Wilcox had already removed the first two
letters. Leibovitch offered to help and
Wilcox told him which staircase to climb
Roni Leibovitch and his grandmother Tzvia Leibovitch, 94, a Holocaust survivor of
Netanya, Israel
in the crumbling structure to get to the
covered bridge. While the men worked
together, a local TV news crew doing a live
report showed images of them on camera.
"I had some tools in my car so I brought
a hammer with me:' Leibovitch says. "But
we ended up using our hands. It felt grati-
fying to take it down. There was a sense of
accomplishment — in some indirect way,
justice. It was reassuring that someone else
cared enough to do something about it as
well:'
Wilcox (who is not Jewish) is also proud
he took the sign down — even though his
actions attracted some unwanted atten-
tion. In recent days, people have posted