Cops find stolen Auschwitz sign

Police arrest Auschwitz sign thieves

(2009-12-21) Polish police have recovered the Nazi German "Arbeit macht frei" sign stolen from the site of the Auschwitz death camp in southern Poland and arrested the alleged thieves.

"We have arrested five men aged from 20 to 39 in the north of Poland. The recovered sign has been cut up into three pieces," Dariusz Nowak, spokesman for the police in southern Krakow, told AFP.

Two of the men were arrested in a car in the northern port of Gdynia, where ships depart for Germany, Lithuania, the US, Britain (Hull and Felixstowe) and China. The third at his home in Wloclawek.

The sign was found buried in woods in Czernikowie near Torun.

Learning of the sign's recovery, Pawel Sawicki, a spokesperson for Auschwitz museum, told AFP: "It's an enormous relief. We are extremely grateful to the police who have done fantastic work."

He added: "This symbol, probably one of the most important of the past century, can be put back in its place.

"We're very impatient to see what condition the sign is in. We have been told it's been cut up into pieces. Our curators will get it restored so that it can be put up again as quickly as possible."

Auschwitz museum is preparing to celebrate the 65th anniversary of Auschwitz-Birkenau's liberation by the Red Army on 27 January.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski said after the theft: "A worldwide symbol of the cynicism of Hitler's executioners and the martyrdom of their victims has been stolen. This act deserves the strongest possible condemnation."

Readers Comments

Send them to Aushhwitz for a dose of "shock therapy" ( see your report May )

Jack High - Dortmund-Germany
at 2009-12-21 13:29:12

May the people resposnible for this heinous act, rot in their own personalo hell. These people, apparently acting through personal greed, are beneath contempt.

George Ray - Manchester, United Kingdom
at 2010-01-16 10:01:04

Cops find stolen Auschwitz sign

Readers Comments

Comments are now closed for this article