Poland tightens border in hunt for stolen Auschwitz sign
Poles offering $36,000 reward for info; Peres to Polish PM: Sign has deep historical significance.
By Nir Hasson and Barak Ravid Tags: Holocaust Israel newsPolish police and border guards stepped up security checks at airports and border crossings Saturday as the search intensified for the infamous sign stolen from the Auschwitz death camp memorial.
The brazen overnight theft of one of the Holocaust's most chilling and notorious symbols early Friday sparked outrage from around the world, and Polish leaders declared recovering the 16-foot sign a top priority.
The sign read Arbeit Macht Frei - work makes you free - a grim Nazi slogan etched in the minds of millions.
Interior Minister Jerzy Miller ordered police to question all possible witnesses and suspects in a nationwide effort to find the sign.
Meanwhile on Friday, President Shimon Peres met with Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Copenhagen to discuss the theft of the infamous entrance sign.
Peres asked Tusk to take all necessary measures to capture the thieves and to restore the sign to its rightful place.
The President emphasized the importance of the sign to Tusk. "The sign has deep historical significance to the Jewish nation and to the entire world. It serves as a memorial for more than a million Jews who were exterminated at Auschwitz."
Tusk assured Peres that his government is putting all its efforts in investigating the event and said that he has instructed the public security minister, who heads the police and special security forces in Poland, to make the sign theft a top priority.
"The sign's theft is a very severe act and it is as painful for us as it is for you," Tusk said.
Foreign Ministry official Yossi Levy said that Israel was "astounded and angry about the theft at Auschwitz."
"Israel has full faith in the Polish authorities in charge of the investigation, and believes that the Polish police will apprehend the inhuman thieves and restore the sign to its place to serve as a chilling testimony of the horrors committed at the camp."
Polish police spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo said local authorities believed the sign was stolen between 3:30 a.m. and 5 a.m., when museum guards noticed that it was missing and alerted the police.
Padlo added that the iron sign, which spanned a gate at the main entrance to the former Nazi death camp, was removed by being unscrewed on one side and pulled off on the other.
Police are offering 5,000 zloty (1,700 dollars) for information about the thieves or where the sign might be hidden, while private security firm Art-Security group offered twice that much.
They are also appealing to residents of Oswiecim for tips. The museum itself offered a 100,000-zloty (34,000-dollar) award for information, a spokesman said late Friday.
The daily Gazeta Wyborcza said on its website that the museum authorities had already installed a replica sign over the gate that had been used briefly a few years ago when the original was being repaired.
"This [theft] is very saddening," Gazeta Wyborcza quoted Jaroslaw Mensfelt, the museum's spokesman, as saying.
"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."
Information and Diaspora Minister Yuli Edelstein said in response that "this is one the Polish police's biggest failures," adding that" anti-Semitic events in the world are multiplying, and there is a valid fear for the safety of the Jews in the Diaspora."
Noah Flug, who heads an umbrella organization of Holocaust survivors' advocacy groups in Israel, said that he hopes the Polish police direct major efforts towards solving the crime and bringing the perpetrators to justice.
Hundreds of thousands of people visit the museum every year, but ticket sales are not enough to maintain the open-air site with its 155 buildings - including the gas chambers - 300 ruined facilities and hundreds of thousands of personal items.
On Wednesday, Germany committed itself to paying half the cost of restoring the leaky buildings and crumbling personal possessions of the former Nazi death camp.
The premiers of Germany's 16 federal states and Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed in Berlin to contribute 60 million euros, saying Auschwitz must be maintained as a monument to condemn the Holocaust and Nazi reign of terror.
More than one million people, the large majority of whom were Jews, were murdered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, spread over three sites. Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II, was the site of gas chambers.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau International Memorial Foundation has appealed for 120 million euros to patch up 150 buildings and the ruins of 300 others. The money is also needed to preserve victims' stored personal effects, including 80,000 shoes and 3,800 suitcases.
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The entrance sign to former Nazi death camp Auschwitz that was stolen. |
| Photo by: (Archive) |
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The sign has been recovered, cut in three pieces, 5 suspects arrested. Now history has been restored, felicitations to all. However, I still have no intention of visiting that gruesome site. Plenty of photos and videos. Let the dead rest in peace.
Our police managed to find stolen Auschwitz sign last night. Five thieves were arrested. Thanks G-d for his help.
I am Polish and I feel so ashamed for what those primitive citizens of my country did.
My wife and I traveled to Poland in August of 2009 from Nova Scotia, Canada for the sole purpose of visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Our first impressions of the camp in regard to the cynicism, hatred and arrogance of the Nazis were entrenched in the sign which they erected so many decades ago, "work brings freedom", the English translation. Please do NOT dignify the likes of Hitler, Himmler and the rest of the Nazis fanatics. Return this sign to it's rightful place in the history of mankind and remember the 1.5 million people, mainly Jews, who were murdered there. The sign belongs to them. Those men, women and children certainly paid the price. eric (of the Christian faith).
and no one, except for those who took it, knows WHY it was taken. and quite frankly, for all anyone knows, it was stolen by jews. what then, dan? self-hating? dirt poor? or maybe just some whose perspective sees the sign as a memory of the ideology that created it, rather than the suffering of those who walked beneath it to their fate. linthwaite may be wrong about the reason it was taken, but your assumption is no more valid than his. both are plausible, and even probable; but neither is KNOWN.
To #3 - Original sign At a rough estimate, the original sign (due to its becoming an icon) would be worth millions if sold legally, and certainly a sizeable amount if sold illegally. It`s extremely surprising it wasn`t replaced with a replica years ago. ******* That's my thinking, too. If the sign is found to be a replica, it would be of little value except as a morbid souvenir.
Tom, I feel your pain and applaude your bravery. In the ongoing, Worldwide struggle to prevent the feelings of Jews being hurt, proud Jews such as yourself lead the way. We must not let this incident leave us feeling victimized! We refuse to bow down to such montrous intimidation! Oh, the pain!
...BORDERS." Adw. Waht did you smoke this morning. Geramany lost Solisia (Dolny i Gorny Slask) Pomorze/Kaszuby and East Prusia when it was smashed by red Army, USA and Brittain in 1945. Germany reiterated twice since 1945, first with Communist Poland and after 1990 with Democratic Poland. Oswiecim is well within Polish borders. The sign was most likely stolen to be sold to Neo Nazi collectors.GOOGLE IT:Poland is Europe's biggest producer and exporter of Nazi memorabilia,a newspaper reported Friday.Most of the items are sold to neo-Nazis in Germany or Scandinavia,the Polska daily said. Buying Nazi symbols is illegal in those countries, but allowed in Poland.SS emblems and swastika armbands can be easily bought at markets in Poland's larger cities. The business is also booming on the internet, with one Polish auction website offering some 600 items. A complete SS officer's uniform goes for 3,000 zloty (1,400 dollars), while iron crosses cost 15 zloty and are often sold in bulk,
For any normal thinking and feeling human being, it really doesn't matter if the "original" sign or a replica is hanging over the gate. The sign is just a sign. Although it may play a "holy" role for the extremists, it doesn't have any "holy" significance for us Jews at all. That it has been stolen doesn't downplay in any way the horrific crimes that were committed in Auschwitz-Birkenau or any other German-Nazi death camp. Let's not let ourselves feel victimized by some mean little petty thieves who stole a symbol that was conceived and put up by the perverted and murderous Nazis in the first place.
He's been 'out of town'.
Can you imagine what some rich, ghoulish collectors would pay for it? Probably some Russian or Swiss or other foreigner with an excess of money and no conscience is admiring the hideous sign over his fireplace at this very moment. Certainly no German stole it "for shame".
with one from the stores. It is an icon of Auschwitz a visual aid to try and make some sense of what happened there. I actually think Canada burning down would be a disaster because you could not replace personal items of the victims because Irving et al would be able to say quite correctly that it is a hoax they did not belong to the original inhabitants of Auschwitz. Publicising the theft of this signage plays into the hands of whoever stole it. Putting new signage up and keeping quiet would have been much more effective than declaring states of emergencies etc. Which draws attention to the new facists if it was them, and makes it more likely thieves melt it down before taking it to the scrapyard.
Today I read about the making of the sign. It was manufactured by the early prisoners. Those with iron-work expertise. It just adds a little bit more to the sad story. I do not agree with your removing historical artifacts. By condoning this you also condone the Taliban's removal of the centuries old Buddha statues in Afghanistan. Sorrowfuly those were sculpted from the natural rock exposure and can never be replicated.
I THINK NEO-NAZIS DID THIS. THERE IS NO WAY A NORMAL HUMAN COULD DO THIS. PERHAPS THE DECLARATION BY THE GERMAN GOVT ON WEDNESDAY WAS THE SPARK? ALSO I AM AFRAID THE PART OF THE GATE IS BEYOND POLAND'S BORDERS....
"Why slobber over the past?Who needs these ugly reminders? It is so ghoulish and masochistic to continue this morbid masturbation over nightmarish events that occurred so long ago. Why immortalize the Nazis and their creed? I would love to see all these grim relics plowed under and gardens, parks, night clubs put in their place." [SR] It is precisely because of anti-semitic people like you, who mis-identify themselves with what they think is a Jewish-sounding name, mis-identify their location as being the City with the highest Jewish population in the world, and spew their propoganda on an Israeli newspaper's website, that we need "these ugly reminders". There isn't a Jew in the world who would call for the erasure of the evidence of the holocaust. People like you (and there are all too many of you) would just love it if all evidence of the holocaust were "plowed under". In terms of world history timeline, the holocaust occurred not 'yesterday', but just a few minutes ago.
I suppose if on the one hand there are holocaust deniers, there are on the other hand holocaust enlargers. Almost everyone agrees the number of deaths was (perhaps) one and a quarter million. Also, although it doesn't matter to you, the hundred and fifty thousand Polish Christians deserve not to be forgotten.
We should also tear down all evidence of all cultures just like China did in Tibet and replace all these grotesque monuments to Humanity with McDonald's, Disneylands and Coca Cola Factories. A good gunshop with a strip joint on every corner, local Cinemas playing only American films about futuristic space monkeys. Let's just destroy all History and live in cyberspace with the X Factor.
Who needs these ugly reminders? It is so ghoulish and masochistic to continue this morbid masturbation over nightmarish events that occurred so long ago. Why immortalize the Nazis and their creed? I would love to see all these grim relics plowed under and gardens, parks, night clubs put in their place.
The thieves did not steal this for the metal value, but for what it represents. This original artefact was the last thing the almost 3 million (mostly Jews) who entered this death camp saw before their death. The thieves did not steal a piece of metal, they stole a piece of history and truth which they purposely planned to. The Holocaust deniers will try to deny and remove evidence of what took place 60 years ago in that place. Your insensitivity and auto-reflex against anything Jewish and Israeli is screaming once again dude.
An idea born out by Germans and played out in Poland. If stolen by a Pole it was for greed. If it was stolen by a German it was for shame.
I had the privilage of visiting Auschwitz last week and walking under that sign as a free man. The emotions I felt were undescribable and as I visited the various parts of the camp it became even more harrowing to think of the suffering our fellow humans had to endure. THEY MAY STEAL A SIGN BUT THEY WILL NEVER TAKE AWAY THE MEMORY
"anti-Semitic events in the world are multiplying, and there is a valid fear for the safety of the Jews in the Diaspora" -Yuli Edelstein If anyone comes up with a more blatant non-sequitur than the phrase above said in relation to the theft, I will send you a check of 500 (five hundred) dollars this very evening. Feel free to get carried away, but I'm afraid only the position of Israeli Information and Diaspora minister allows one such a freeplay of imagination, in a public discourse too.
But who would want it? I don't think I could sleep with it near me. You can't show it off. You certainly can't sell it.
You think it was stolen for scrap metal? I think anyone can see that's ridiculous. It was obviously taken as a political racist statement. To think otherwise is an exercise in self delusion
what are they waiting for? for racist settlements to restore in full power after 10 months?
Anti-Semites like what Auschwitz stood for during the holocaust but not what it stands for today. It could be Arabs who took it, holocaust deniers, or Anti-Semitic Poles who hate having Jews travel to their nation after they worked so hard to make Poland Judenrein. Why are there not security cameras and security guarding the site?
It's reverted. The sign was prepared by a Polish prisoner of the camp, so he did it on purpose, to inspire disbelief about the message.
Seem pretty strong of Israel's police to lable the theives 'inhuman'. From memory the same thing happened to Jews during the holocaust. For them to say that shows a disgusting lack of hindsight.
"all the terror proceeds from us". this "us" could also be US in some variations.
I have to agree with you. It is very surprising that the real thing is still was still in-situ before it was probably stolen either for a ransom or for scrap.
Exactly, there are no tickects to enter to Auschwitz death camp. The entrance is totally free.
premeditated!
In the 1940s the place was inhuman and the people who managed it represent the monstrosities humans can stoop to when the constraints of common decency crumble. But the people who stole the sign? They are just thieves! They probably had reason to believe there might be a price for it, that it might be a good investment. Or yes, maybe it was vandalism. It's best to keep powder dry and to use the world "inhuman" where it actually fits. Otherwise no-one will sit up and take notice when something really inhuman happens. Worth thinking about, this.
Where can you buy tickets to visit the camp? Been there twice, last time a month ago, didn't see any ticket booths. So why are you lying? Auschwitz has been maintained for ages from Polish tax payers' pockets, mostly. Entrance is FREE of charge.
It's a German symbol, not a Jewish symbol, so they can take their symbol and sh.ve it!
Shame on them .
At a rough estimate, the original sign (due to its becoming an icon) would be worth millions if sold legally, and certainly a sizeable amount if sold illegally. It's extremely surprising it wasn't replaced with a replica years ago.
with the original displayed in a more secure environment?
Fact is scrap metal is worth a lot of money these days, and cemetries all over Europe have bee stripped of metal. Maybe the authorities should think about putting a fibreglass replica up, clearly signed of course, which has happened throughout Europe where this has occured..