Auschwitz Theft

An iron sign bearing a Nazi slogan, “Arbeit Macht Frei”, was stolen early this morning from the main entrance of the Poland-based death camp Auschwitz, according to police. “The sign with the German words for “Work Sets You Free” is believed to have been stolen from the gates of the Auschwitz memorial between 3.30am and 5am, when museum guards noticed it was missing and alerted authorities, a police spokeswoman, Katarzyna Padlo, said. The wide iron sign across a gate at the main entrance to the former Nazi death camp in southern Poland, where more than 1 million people died during the second world war, was unscrewed on one side and pulled off on the other, Padlo said. Criminal investigators and search dogs were sent to the grounds of the vast former death camp, where barracks, watchtowers and the ruins of gas chambers still stand as testament to the atrocities inflicted by Nazi Germany on Jews, Gypsies and others.”