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12/18/2009

 

The thieves came in the early morning hours. And they were well-prepared. Amid freezing temperatures, they managed to take down the top part of the entrance gate to the former Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland, which bore the infamous phrase "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Will Set You Free"). They then got the iron sign through a hole in the fence and drove it away.

So far, there has been no trace of the perpetrators.

The poor lighting at the memorial site, including some original fixtures from the 1940s, probably made the theft easier. A security camera was taking images, but they were not recorded, according to Polish TV channel TVP.

The police are working on the assumption that there were three thieves, as one or even two perpetrators were unlikely to have managed the audacious robbery by themselves. So far there is nothing to indicate anti-Semitism as a motive for the crime.

"This is not a theft, this is a desecration of this place," museum spokesman Pawel Swicki said. The sign was quickly replaced on Friday with an exact replica made when the original was restored several years ago.

The theft has provoked outrage, particularly in Israel. Silvan Shalom, one of Israel's deputy prime ministers, called it an "abominable act that amounts to profanation." He said it demonstrated "hatred and violence against Jews."

'Tasteless and Shocking'

Meanwhile, Avner Shalev, the president of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, said that the theft was a "declaration of war." "We don't know the identity of the perpetrators, but I assume they are neo-Nazis," he added.

The German government has also expressed its concern. "We hope that this crime will be solved quickly and that the damage to the memorial can be quickly repaired," said Andreas Peschke, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry.

Dieter Graumann, vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, described the theft as "tasteless and shocking." He said that the theft would cause "great pain" to the survivors of the Holocaust and their relatives. He assumed that the Polish authorities would catch the perpetators and that they would make sure that "nothing like this happens again."

The Polish police have positioned officers on the streets near Auschwitz and are checking all large cars and vans. The tapes from the security cameras at the memorial are being assessed. Officials are also offering 5,000 zloty (around €1,200, or $1,700) for any information leading to the arrest of the thieves.

The "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign was erected by Polish prisoners around six months after the camp was established by the German occupying forces in June 1940. The letter "B" was place upside down in a concealed act of defiance by the team of prisoners, lead by Jan Liwacz.

Today, the sign is widely regarded as a symbol of the suffering of the millions of people who died in the Nazi concentration camps under the Third Reich. In Auschwitz and an adjoining camp, Birkenau, the National Socialists murdered more than 1.1 million people, the vast majority of which were Jews.