Thieves steal Auschwitz's 'Arbeit macht frei' entrance sign

[Lady Macbeth]

A gang of thieves in Poland has stolen the infamous wrought iron sign announcing that “work sets you free” that spans the main gate of the Auschwitz concentration camp.



The long, curving sign, reading “Arbeit macht frei”, was erected by the Nazis soon after the old Auschwitz barracks were converted into a labour and extermination centre in 1940. It was supposed to suggest that hard work would eventually allow inmates to walk free.

But, as Auschwitz was turned into a major hub for the Holocaust, murdering over a million people, the majority of them Jews, the sign became a mocking, cynical commentary.

“It seems that a gang of perhaps three people unscrewed the sign between three o’clock and five o’clock on Friday morning,” said the spokesman for the police in southern Poland, Dariusz Nowak. “They must have used a ladder and had a car waiting for them.”

Video footage is being analysed and dog teams are being used to search the 20 square kilometres surrounding the camp.

The Jewish community in Poland and the Israel authorities expressed deep shock and dismay.

“This is very saddening,” Jaroslaw Mensfelt, the Auschwitz museum’s spokesman, said. “The thieves either didn’t know where they were or — what’s even worse — they did know but that didn’t prevent them from stealing." Police say that they are investigating all possible options. The obvious explanation seems to be that the theft was carried out by neo-Nazis.

Holocaust deniers have long targeted Auschwitz in an attempt to demonstrate that the systematic murder of Jews has been invented or exaggerated. Deniers have previously taken soil samples from the camp and made measurements in order to argue that the number of victims gassed and cremated was far smaller than claimed.

The camp museum directors have already stated that a replica has been made of the sign. The neo-Nazis could try to establish that the sign is fake and thus, by extension, claim that much of the camp is as well.

“We have already installed a replica sign over the gate,” Mr Mensfelt said. “We used it in the past when the original was being repaired. I hope the original will quickly be retrieved and the thieves caught.

“This is not only a theft, but a horrible profanation in a place where more than a million people were murdered in the biggest such site in this part of the world. It is a disgraceful act.”

There has always been a danger as Holocaust survivors and their Nazi murderers die out that the authenticity of the sites themselves would be questioned.

Auschwitz is made up primarily of red-brick buildings that formed part of Habsburgian barracks — used initially to imprison Polish political prisoners — and the wooden prisoner huts of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Birkenau was the location of the gas chambers, but both parts of the old Nazi camp are showing signs of wear and tear as many hundreds of thousands of tourists visit the site, near Cracow, every year.

The critical question has been how far to restore the buildings and the crumbling personal possessions — the spectacles for example, removed from the corpses of those gassed to death, about 80,000 shoes and 3,800 suitcases — and risk opening up the museum to charges of falsification. In all there are 155 buildings, including crematoria, and about 300 ruins on the sprawling site.

The theft could be linked to the decision this week by Germans authorities to pay half the cost of patching up the buildings. About €60 million have been earmarked by Germany’s 16 federal states and by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s federal Government. The Auschwitz-Birkenau International Memorial Foundation has appealed for a total of €120 million.

Thieves steal Auschwitz's 'Arbeit macht frei' entrance sign - Times Online

[Lady Macbeth]

And what do they plan to do with it.....sell it on Ebay?

[Solid Beast]

Originally Posted by Lady Macbeth

And what do they plan to do with it.....sell it on Ebay?

If it's organized crime they will end up selling it back to the government. However it could be senseless vandalism/theft.

[Lady Macbeth]

WARSAW, Poland – Polish police have recovered the infamous Nazi sign stolen from the former Auschwitz death camp, cut into three pieces, and said Monday it appeared to have been taken by common criminals seeking profit.



Five men were arrested late Sunday after the damaged "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Sets You Free") sign was found near one of their homes in a snowy forest outside Czernikowo, a village near the northern Polish city of Torun, across the country from the memorial site.
The brazen pre-dawn theft Friday of one of the Holocaust's most chilling symbols provoked outrage around the world. Polish leaders launched an intensive search for the 5-meter (16-foot) sign, which spanned the main gate of the camp in southern Poland where more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed during World War II.
The men's arrest late Sunday came after more than 100 tips, said Andrzej Rokita, the chief police investigator in the case.
Police said it was too soon to say what the motive for the theft was but they are investigating whether the Nazi memorabilia market may have played a part. The suspects do not have known neo-Nazi or other far-right links, Rokita said.
"Robbery and material gain are considered one of the main possible motives, but whether that was done on someone's order will be determined in the process of the investigation," added deputy investigator Marek Wozniczka.
"They are ordinary thieves," Rokita said.
The suspects have not been identified publicly, but Rokita said they were between the ages of 20 and 39 and that their past offenses were "either against property or against health and life," implying that at least one of them has a record of violent crime.
Four of them are unemployed and one owns a small construction company, he said. He would not give any other details.
Four of the five men are believed to have carried out the theft, removing the 30- to 40-kilogram (65- to 90-pound) steel sign from above the Auschwitz gate in the town of Oswiecim, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Krakow.
"It seems they cut the sign up already in Oswiecim, to make transport easier," Rokita said at a news conference in Krakow. It was "hidden in the woods near the home of one of them."
Police in Krakow released a photograph showing investigators removing the cut-up sign — covered in brown protective paper — from a van. A second photograph showed one of the suspects being pulled from the van, a hooded sweat shirt hiding his face.
Wozniczka said the suspects will be charged with theft of an object of special cultural value and could face up to 10 years in prison. He said other charges could be added during the investigation.
Museum authorities welcomed the news with relief, despite the damage. Spokesman Pawel Sawicki said authorities hope to restore the sign to its place as soon as it can be repaired, and was working to develop a new security plan.
An exact replica of the sign, produced when the original underwent restoration work years ago, was hung in its place Friday.
In a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press, Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, welcomed the sign's swift recovery.
"Whatever the motivation, it takes warped minds to steal the defining symbol of the Holocaust from the world's most renowned killing field," he said.
The chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial, expressed relief.
"The theft of the sign, which had become a symbol both of the ultimate evil that found its expression in Auschwitz, and of the memory of the Shoah — Jewish Holocaust — gave pain to Holocaust survivors and people of conscience everywhere," Avner Shalev said in a statement. "The concern expressed by people around the world illustrates the importance and awareness of Holocaust remembrance today."
Noach Flug, an Auschwitz survivor and chair of a consortium of survivors' groups, welcomed the sign's recovery and called for tighter security.
Security guards patrol the 940-acre (200-hectare) site around the clock, but due to its size they only pass by any one area at intervals.
After occupying Poland in 1939, the Nazis established the Auschwitz I camp, which initially housed German political prisoners and non-Jewish Polish prisoners. The sign was made in 1940. Two years later, hundreds of thousands of Jews began arriving by cattle trains to the wooden barracks of nearby Birkenau, also called Auschwitz II.
More than 1 million people, mostly Jews, but also Gypsies, Poles and others, died in the gas chambers or from starvation and disease while performing forced labor. The camp was liberated by the Soviet army on Jan. 27, 1945.
The grim slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" contrasted so dramatically with the function of the camp that it has been etched into history. The phrase appeared at the entrances of other Nazi camps, too, including Dachau and Sachsenhausen, but the long curving sign at Auschwitz was the best-known.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091221/...lzaHBvbGljZQ--

[Lady Macbeth]

The Nazi gang that ordered the theft of the infamous 'Arbeit Macht Frei' sign from the gates of Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland planned to sell it to fund violent attacks against the Swedish Prime Minister and Parliament, it was claimed today.



A spokesman for the Swedish security police confirmed that the authorities were taking seriously a threat by a militant Nazi group to disrupt national elections next year.

"We are aware of the information about the alleged attack plans," said Patrik Peter, the security police spokesman.

“We have taken actions. We view this seriously.”

The wrought-iron sign, whose inscription – translated as 'Work sets you free' – was viewed by hundreds of thousands of Jews as they entered the Nazi death camp where they met their deaths during the Second World War. It was stolen from the camp – now a museum – last Friday, provoking worldwide expressions of dismay and revulsion.

It was recovered on Monday, hacked into three pieces and wrapped in cloth. Police suspect that it was initially hidden in woodland before being transferred to a builder’s yard where it was found.

Allegations concerning who ordered the theft, and why, have surfaced today in Swedish newspaper reports after the former leader of a Swedish Nazi group claimed that it had been stolen to order for a collector in England, France or the United States.

"We had a person who was ready to pay millions for the sign," the unnamed source told Aftonbladet, Sweden's biggest-selling daily newspaper.

The Nazi source said that the money would pay for an attack on the home of Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish Prime Minister who has held the rotating presidency of the European Union for the last six months, and on the Swedish Foreign Ministry, the paper reported.

A third attack allegedly involved plans to bombard Swedish MPs from the public seats of the parliament.

"The sign was to be delivered to Sweden, since it was here the deal should be made," the source said. "My role was to find a buyer. We had a person who was willing to pay millions but he had no political agenda. These things have a huge collector value... The biggest collectors are from England, the United States and France."

The source allegedly said that five men were to be paid for carrying out the theft. He reportedly insisted that he personally was not guilty of any crime as the deal had not been completed. Aftonbladet reported that he had been convicted several times in connection with his Nazi affiliation, and that he had made repeated visits to Poland.

Polish television has reported that police were investigation a Swedish connection in the theft of the Auschwitz sign. Mr Peter said that no arrests had yet been made.

"A prosecutor has been informed and the Government offices have been informed," said Mr Peter. He declined to discuss any details of the attack plans.

Five men, aged between 20 and 39, from the Torun area of northern Poland, have been arrested for the theft of the sign. The decisive tip-off came in one of 120 calls to a police hotline over the weekend. The museum had offered a £23,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the sign. The caller gave enough information for all five suspects to be rounded up within three hours.

Andrzej Rokita, the deputy commander of Cracow police, described them as non-political. All had previous convictions for theft or assault.

They are being interrogated in Cracow, the city responsible for the nearby Auschwitz camp museum. If charges are pressed, they could face up to ten years in jail for the “theft of a cultural treasure of particular significance”.

Museum authorities are urging the police to release the three portions of the sign so that they can be re-erected before the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp next month. In the meantime, a replica has been placed over the entrance.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6967449.ece

[Lady Macbeth]

Suspect In Auschwitz Sign Theft Arrested In Sweden



Anders Hogstrom, Suspect In Auschwitz Sign Theft, Arrested In Sweden

STOCKHOLM — Swedish police on Thursday arrested a former neo-Nazi leader that Polish investigators suspect of being involved in the theft of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign at Auschwitz.

Swedish Prosecutor Agneta Hilding Qvarnstrom said 34-year-old Anders Hogstrom was detained in Stockholm on a European arrest warrant.

Hilding Qvarnstrom said Hogstrom will be appointed a defense lawyer and questioned by Swedish investigators before authorities can decide on extraditing him to Poland.

Polish officials have said Hogstrom is suspected of incitement to commit theft of a cultural treasure.

The infamous sign – which means "Work Sets You Free" in German – was stolen in December from the site of the Nazis' former Auschwitz death camp in Poland. Polish police found it in the woods three days later cut up into three pieces and charged five Polish men with its theft.

The Polish prosecutor has said he has evidence that Hogstrom visited Auschwitz with two Poles last spring and told them to steal the sign.

Experts on Sweden's extreme-right say Hogstrom founded and led the Swedish neo-Nazi group National Socialist Front in the 1990s. During that time he helped organize yearly celebrations of Adolf Hitler's birthday and advocated repatriation of refugees to their home countries, according to Expo, a research foundation that has mapped right-wing extremists.

However, Expo said he left National Socialist Front in 1999 after two of its members were convicted of a high-profile police murder, and he then became an active opponent of the extreme right.

Hogstrom has reportedly given conflicting information about his alleged role in the theft.
The Tabloid Aftonbladet quoted Hogstrom as saying he was acting as a middleman between the Polish thieves and an English-speaking buyer. But in a video clip posted Jan. 9 on the Web site of another tabloid, Expressen, Hogstrom said he had simply been tipped off about the theft and tried to stop it.

The Auschwitz sign is one of the most well-known slogans for Nazi Germany's atrocities during World War II and the Holocaust.

Between 1940 and 1945 more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau or died of starvation or disease while forced to perform hard physical labor at the camp.