Auschwitz 'Arbeit Macht Frei' sign stolen

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Theft of infamous 'Arbeit Macht Frei' Auschwitz sign branded a 'desecration'
18th December 2009

The infamous iron sign bearing the Nazis' cynical slogan 'Arbeit Macht Frei' that spanned the main entrance to the former Auschwitz death camp was stolen before dawn this morning, Polish police said. The wide iron sign - across a gate at the former Nazi death camp in southern Poland where more than 1 million people died during World War II - was removed by being unscrewed on one side and torn off on the other, police spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo said. She said the sign - bearing the German words for 'Work Sets You Free' - disappeared from the Auschwitz memorial between 3.30am and 5am.

Police have launched an intensive hunt, with criminal investigators and search dogs sent to the grounds of the vast former death camp, whose barracks, watchtowers and ruins of gas chambers still stand as testament to the atrocities inflicted by Nazi Germany on Jews, Gypsies, and others.

Museum spokesman Pawel Sawicki branded the theft a 'desecration' and said it was shocking that the tragic history of the site did not stop the thieves. 'We believe that the perpetrators will be found soon and the inscription will be returned to its place,' Sawicki said. Sawicki said: 'The sign means everything - it's a symbol of what Auschwitz stands for. But a place where hundreds of thousands of people died obviously doesn't mean anything to the thieves.

Padlo said there are currently no suspects but police are pursuing several theories. A £1,000 reward has been offered to anyone who can help track down the perpetrators. Noach Flug, president of the International Auschwitz Committee and chairman of the Centre of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors called on the Polish government and police 'to exert an especially concentrated effort into catching the perpetrators and bringing them to justice.' He added: 'This is an object that is a symbol of historic value that must be returned immediately.'

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Hopefully some drunk students will have woken up wondering what the hell they did last night...though it could well be some nazi freak who gets off on having stuff like this.

[Skylace]

I am hoping the same as well face. Let's hope it turns up soon.

[SpursFan1902]

I hope they find it soon. I can't believe someone would do that....

[SquareEyes]

There are some sick f**kers around to do a thing like that...

[faceless]

I just heard that police have found the sign - cut into three pieces.

It will be restored and returned to its place, I'm sure.

[SpursFan1902]

I am so glad they found it. I understand it was just some thugs who stole it, not for any neo nazi agenda, just theives....

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Auschwitz asks Britain for help to preserve decaying death camp
Visitors to the Auschwitz death camp. Its custodians are asking Gordon Brown to contribute to restoration costs
Roger Boyes

The guard towers of Auschwitz are splintering, the barracks are waterlogged: the concentration camp where one million Jews were slaughtered is decaying so fast that conservationists have called on Britain to help to save it.

The theft last month of its distinctive, sinister sign, Arbeit macht frei (work sets you free) has underlined the vulnerability of the Nazi death camp, stretching over 20 hectares (50 acres) of southern Poland. “Nobody could have imagined such a horrific act of vandalism,” Jacek Kastelaniec, director-general of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, said. “Now try to imagine the public outcry if one of the barracks started to fall down, impossible to restore.”

Auschwitz was built on boggy ground between two rivers; as a result the high groundwater and bad drainage has rotted the foundations. Walls are blistering and starting to lean, roof frames are buckling, plasterwork and wall-paintings are flaking.

Mr Kastelaniec will go to the Cabinet Office tomorrow to press the Government on Gordon Brown’s promise to contribute to a €120million (£110million) endowment fund that will guarantee the preservation of one of the main sites of the Holocaust. Mr Brown visited the camp last April, and, plainly upset by what he had seen, declared: “We will join with other countries in supporting the maintenance and retention of the memorial at Auschwitz.” No figure has been suggested publicly for Britain’s possible contribution, but Polish sources say that the conservationists are hoping for about €10million.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has said that her country would put up half of the costs, but the managers of the Auschwitz museum need other commitments. Mr Kastelaniec will also visit France, Belgium and the United States. The Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, has sent an appeal to 40 heads of government. “The conservationists say we need to start work in the next two years if we are to avert irreparable decay,” Mr Kastelaniec told The Times, “and that will only be possible if the money is paid into the fund now.”

The decay of the camp is politically sensitive. The current trial in Munich of the alleged Sobibor camp guard John Demjanjuk is being seen by the public as the last for Nazi war crimes — the 89-year-old defendant is wheeled into court on a hospital bed. Holocaust survivors are dwindling. “In ten years there will be no witnesses,” Mr Kastelaniec said, “and it will be easier for the crazy people who say nothing happened in the camps.” Only the buildings will remain.

Auschwitz cannot simply have a makeover because that would undermine its claims to authenticity, and open the way for those on the far Right who try to deny or trivialise the Holocaust. The strategic point of the restoration is to use its almost over-powering sense of menace as a clinching counter-argument against anti-Semitism and racism.

The portfolio to be presented to the British Government underlines the vast scale of the camp. The priority is being set on 45 brick barracks. The managers estimate that it will cost up to €890,000 to restore a single barracks building. On top of that come 22 wooden barrack rooms — where inmates were crowded into bunks up to the ceiling. Each will cost €310,000.

Then there are the remains of 210 barrack buildings. Some sheds have collapsed, but there are concrete outlines where floors and chimneys stood. Without some strengthening, these foundation markings will disappear. Cost: €78,000 per barrack room. The 27 wooden guard towers need to be reinforced at an annual cost, for the next 14 years, of €62,000.

Work is under way on conserving the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoriums, but the managers want to extend this to include a provisional gas chamber-bunker, two other crematoriums and the unloading ramp. Property taken from prisoners before they were gassed, now exhibited in small piles in the museum, is also showing signs of age: 460 artifical limbs, 40kg (90lb) of discarded spectacles, 260 prayer garments and 3,800 suitcases that belonged to people who ended their journey in Auschwitz.

The sluggish response worldwide to the restoration had been down, in part, to the feeling that the main burden should be on Germany. Mr Kastelaniec said: “The breakthrough came when we convinced not only Germany but also other contributors that this was not a project about guilt, but about the future.”

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[funkyfunkpants]

Isn't there Jewish charities for this?

[faceless]

It seems it's a World Heritage Site, so that does mean everyone in the UN should contribute. I'm surprised the Polish government isn't right up for maintaining it though - it's a big tourist attraction. Maybe they'd prefer it to fade away... and I can see why.

[SpursFan1902]

Maybe the current funding isn't up to the task at hand. They may be up for it but not able to pay for it. I was thinking the same thing, funky. Jewish charities should be able to wrangle up some cash...

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