Three men jailed over theft of Work Sets You Free Auschwitz sign
Three men sent to jail in Poland after admitting to theft of Auschwitz sign last year
Thursday, 18, Mar 2010 04:15
Three men have been convicted in Poland today over the theft of the notorious Arbeit Macht Frei sign above the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
A court in Poland found the three men - two of whom are brothers - guilty of the theft of the sign in December last year.
The sign, which translates as "Work Sets You Free", shocked survivors of the Holocaust when it was taken from above the entrance of the former concentration camp on December 17th. It was recovered by Polish police three days later, but had been cut into three pieces.
Krakow's district court said the men confessed to the theft and agreed to settlements, which meant the case did not have to go to trial, identifying them as Radoslaw M, Lukasz M and Pawel S in keeping with Polish privacy laws. The trio were given jail sentences ranging from 18 months to two and a half years. Two other Polish men await trial in connection with the case.
A Swedish man with a neo-Nazi background, Anders Hogstrom, is also a suspect.
He is under arrest in Sweden and due to be extradited to Poland.
More than a million, predominantly Jewish, people, were killed at Auschwitz in western Poland, during the second world war. The camp has come to symbolise one of the worst ever acts of human atrocity.
When the sign was returned (in three pieces) to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum which maintains the site, museum director Dr Piotr MA Cywinski said: "The ultimate motivation for this shocking theft remains unclear to me."