KrakowInformer.com

A gang of thieves have stolen the infamous wrought-iron sign announcing "Arbeit macht frei" (work sets you free) which hung above the main gate of Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

'Arbeit macht Frei' - work sets you free note the 'B' is set upside down

The long, curved wrought iron sign, bearing the famous inscription was erected by the Germans shortly after the barracks of Auschwitz was completed in 1940. Most scholars and laymen alike interpret the signs meaning as being cynical and making a mockery of the peoples suffering. Auschwitz was the most infamous concentration camp run by the Nazis during the Holocaust, and it was there that over one million people, mostly Jews, met their deaths.

"It seems a group of three people removed the sign between three and five am on Friday morning," said the Police spokesman for southern Poland, Dariusz Nowak. "They must have used ladders and had a car waiting for them." CCTV images are being analysed and Police have used dog teams to search a 20 square kilometre radius around the camp.

The Jewish community in Poland and the Israeli authorities expressed their profound shock and dismay at the theft. "It is very sad”, Jaroslaw Mensfelt, spokesman for the Auschwitz Museum said. The thieves either do not know where they were, or - even worse - that he knew, but that did not stop them stealing.” Police said that they will examine all possible motives for the theft, but one possible line of enquiry is that it was stolen by people with neo-Nazi links.

A survivor of Auschwitz prisoner sixty one was recently interviewed and stated he couldn't sleep since learning of the theft. Prisoners were forced to make the sign and in an act of defiance set the 'B' upside down which can be seen in the adjacent photograph..

Holocaust deniers have attempted for a long time to demonstrate that Auschwitz is a fake and the systematic murder of the Jews was invented or exaggerated. Deniers have previously taken soil samples and measurements from Auschwitz which in order to attempt to prove that the number of victims gassed, murdered and cremated was much smaller than claimed.

Directors of the camp have quickly installed a replica of the original sign."We already have an inscription over the gate”, said Mensfelt. "We used it in the past when the original was being repaired. However I hope the original will be recovered quickly and the thieves quickly caught.It's not only theft, but a terrible desecration of a place where more than one million people were killed in the largest concentration camp of its kind in this part of the world. It's disgraceful act."