Police Recover Infamous Auschwitz Sign

Police have managed to recover the infamous sign that stood over the entrance to the Auschwitz death camp. The Polish police are detaining a man who had possession of the sign, which was cut into three pieces, each containing a word from the sign; arbeit macht frei - work will set you free.

Police said early Monday that they have found the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign that was stolen on Friday from the gate of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz.

Police spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo told The Associated Press that the sign was found in northern Poland. She said police also detained five men aged between 25 and 39 who are being transported to Krakow for questioning.

Another spokesman, Dariusz Nowak, said the sign was cut into three pieces, each containing one of the words.

He said the police were planning a news conference in Krakow at 0800 GMT (3 a.m. EST) Monday.

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.

Krakow police are in charge of the investigation because they are the regional command for the area including the Auschwitz museum.

Polish Authorities Put Reward Up For Stolen Auschwitz Sign

Polish authorities have put a $39,000 reward for the return of the infamous sign that hung over the entrance to Auschwitz. It was stolen yesterday and it is possible that neo-Nazis may have been behind the theft. They apparently unscrewed the sign and made off with it by cutting through a barbed wire fence.

Polish Interior Ministry spokeswoman Wioletta Paprocka said on Saturday afternoon that border guards at Poland's eastern border with Ukraine and Belarus - which is also the European Union's eastern frontier - stepped up checks of goods out of Poland in efforts to locate the sign. Checks have also been tightened at airports.

Interior Minister Jerzy Miller ordered police to increase vigilance and question all possible witnesses and suspects in a nationwide effort to find the sign that stands as one of Nazi Germany's most chilling symbols.

Lawmakers, officials and Holocaust survivors expressed their profound shock and outrage on Friday after thieves made away with the sign.

Police spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo said police believe it was stolen between 3:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. Friday morning, when museum guards noticed that it was missing and alerted police.

Padlo also said that the iron sign, which spanned a gate at the main entrance to the former Nazi death camp in southern Poland, was removed by being unscrewed on one side and pulled off on the other.

Police deployed 50 investigators and a search dog to the Auschwitz grounds, where barracks, watchtowers and ruins of gas chambers still stand as testament to the atrocities inflicted by Nazi Germany.

Thieves Steal Historic Entrance Sign To Auschwitz Death Camp

The sign, which read Arbeit Macht Frei (work will set you free), which hung over the main entrance to the Auschwitz complex, was stolen early this morning.

More than 1 million people were slaughtered at the camps, most of them Jews.

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 3:30 a.m. and 5 a.m.

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 called the theft a "desecration" and said it was shocking that the tragic history of the site did not stop the thieves.

On My Nightstand: Inside the Gas Chambers

Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz by Shlomo Venezia is a timely read. Shlomo Venezia is a Holocaust survivor from Hell on earth. He was a sonderkommando at Auschwitz, where he survived on his wits, luck, and eventually by working at the crematoria in the death camp.

He had a first hand look at the Nazi mass murder of millions of people - primarily Jews. His is a gripping tale of how he came to work at the crematoria, preparing it for the next arrivals who were dispatched immediately because they were unable to be worked to death.

His is one of the few tales of survival among the group of Jews who did that awful and evil task, because all too many of them were murdered when they were incapable of working, and when the Nazis shut down the camps, most were eliminated to cover their tracks and eliminate the witnesses to the crimes committed there.

All too frequently people call political opponents Nazis or make wanton comparisons to the Holocaust, and in doing so, they dishonor the memories and the historical fact of the Holocaust and all the horror that the Holocaust truly was. It was the mass deportation, murder and genocide of millions of Jews all across the European continent by the Nazi regime.