Polish police recover stolen Auschwitz gate sign

[Tigerlily]

WARSAW, Poland - Polish police found the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign that was stolen from the gate of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz after an intensive three-day hunt and arrested five suspects, police said early Monday. The sign was found cut into three pieces.

Police spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo said that the sign was found Sunday night in northern Poland, the other end of the country from the southern Polish town where the Auschwitz memorial museum is located and where it disappeared before dawn Friday.

Padlo said police detained five men between the ages of 25 and 39 and took them for questioning to Krakow, which is the regional command of the area that includes the Auschwitz museum.

Another police spokesman, Dariusz Nowak, said the 16-foot sign, made of hollow steel, was found cut into three pieces, each containing one of the words. The cruelly ironic phrase means "Work Sets You Free" and ran completely counter to the purpose of Auschwitz, which began as a concentration camp for political prisoners during the Nazi occupation of Poland and evolved into an extermination camp where Jews were gassed to death in factory-like fashion.

The police refused to divulge any details of the circumstances in which the sign was found or to speculate on the motive of the perpetrators. They were expected to disclose more at a news conference in Krakow planned for 0800 GMT (3 a.m. EST) Monday.

The sign, which topped the main gate at the Auschwitz memorial site, was stolen early Friday, setting off an international outcry at the disappearance of one of the most chilling and best known symbols of the Holocaust. State authorities made finding it a priority and appealed to all Poles for assistance.

Museum authorities welcomed the news with huge relief despite the damage done to the sign. Spokesman Pawel Sawicki said conservation experts will have to determine how best to repair it and that the museum authorities hope to restore it to its place as soon as possible.

Sawicki said the museum staff did not yet know who carried out the theft or why and were themselves waiting for more information from police.

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 at Auschwitz, which Nazi Germany built in occupied Poland during World War II. The camp was liberated by the Soviet army on Jan. 27, 1945.

Earlier on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Poland to act to find "these twisted criminals that desecrated the place where over a million Jews were murdered."

"The sign is of the deepest historical importance to the Jewish people and the whole world, and is a tombstone for more than a million Jews," Netanyahu said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34503643/

 

[Bassman]

Thanks for posting this. I've heard absolutely nothing about the theft or recovery on broadcast TV or radio news.

 

[J. M. Stovall]

I did. On NPR.

 

[Chas]

What a bunch of a-holes....(the perps.)

The Israeli Gov't needs to take a chill-pill as well. Of course, if they're that easily upset, why don't they pay for security at the site?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

The Times
January 8, 2010

Former neo-Nazi leader Anders Hoegstrom ‘ordered Auschwitz sign theft’

A former leading European neo-Nazi has claimed that he was the middleman in the theft of the Auschwitz sign bearing the three most powerful words from the Holocaust: “Arbeit Macht Frei”.

According to Polish and Swedish investigators, the theft was organised by Anders Hoegstrom — who set up the virulently anti-immigrant National Socialist Front in Sweden in the 1990s. “My role was to get the sign in Poland,” he told the Swedish tabloid Expressen. “I was the middleman and was supposed to take care of the sale.”

Mr Hoegstrom claims that he turned himself in to the Swedish authorities when he suddenly became aware that the sign was to be sold to a collector and the money used to fund a campaign to disrupt the Swedish election campaign this year, if necessary with violence.

The wrought iron lettering meaning -- Work Sets You Free — was nailed by the Nazis to the gate leading into the concentration camp where more than a million Jews were killed.

The sign was stolen last month by a gang of five Poles, apparently to be shipped to Sweden and then sold. It has since been recovered and the gang believed to be responsible is under arrest.

The Swedish intelligence agency SaePo has confirmed that it is investigating reports of a neo-Nazi plot to blow up the Swedish parliament, the Riksdag, and the home of the Prime Minister, Frederik Reinfeldt. The leader of the Polish gang, named only as Marcin A by the Polish authorities, got to know Mr. Hoegstrom two years ago while doing odd jobs on his family estate in southern Sweden.

When Mr. A returned to his small building company in Poland, the two men stayed in touch.

Last autumn Mr. A received word from Sweden that he should put together a group of experienced thieves to unscrew the sign and smuggle it out of the country.

The gang, aged between 25 and 39, with nicknames such as "Old Mouse" and "Sparrow", realised that it was out of its depth when the theft on December 18 prompted an international outcry and a nationwide manhunt. The sign had been broken into three parts and hidden in woodland. Communication was made reportedly between the Poles and Mr. Hoegstrom, and the Swede decided to turn himself in to police.

“I contacted the police immediately as soon as the sign was stolen and gave them all the information I had,” he said. “I haven’t committed any crime. I was the one who saw to it that the sign was found.”

The plot then thickens and indeed begins to resemble the bestselling thrillers of Stieg Larsson, who first made his name as a journalist investigating the far-right fringe in Swedish politics. Sweden’s neo-Nazi movement has shown itself capable of violence in the past. In 1999, for example, far-right attackers shot the trade unionist Bjoern Soederberg.

It was this and other attacks that spurred the journalistic endeavours of Mr Larsson — who worked for a while as the Scandinavian correspondent for the Britsh anti-fascist magazine Searchlight — and persuaded Mr Hoegstrom to change sides.

He renounced his party, which has since splintered and renamed itself, and now co-operates with a group that helps former neo-Nazis to return to normal life.

This leaves several questions unanswered. Why should Mr Hoegstrom be involved in such a high-profile and apparently ideologically driven theft if he has renounced his ways? Who was being lined up to be the final buyer of the sign? And who, if anybody, was really trying to raise cash to blow up parliament?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6980065.ece

 

[DutchIndo]

My Bud from work just got back from Poland. He said it was Cooold, it reminded him of Dr Zhivago. He visited Auschwitz when they replaced the sign. He said the " i " from " Frei " was still missing. They are still searching the forest where they found it buried.

 

[Viola]

What a bunch of a-holes....(the perps.)

The Israeli Gov't needs to take a chill-pill as well. Of course, if they're that easily upset, why don't they pay for security at the site?

How well would that go over and why should they have to?