WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s culture minister on Wednesday promised the Auschwitz museum money to step up security after the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Sets You Free”) sign was stolen from the site of the former Nazi death camp.
Police found the sign Sunday, cut into three pieces and hidden beneath a layer of snow in the woods. Five men have been arrested, and police say the thieves were not driven by ideology but were likely commissioned by someone from abroad.
Polish news agency PAP, citing unnamed sources close to the investigation, reported that the thieves were to receive a commission of between $16,400 to $17,100. Polish media over the past two days have reported that someone in Sweden - either an intermediary or the final customer - commissioned the theft. Investigators, however, have refused to deny or confirm a possible Swedish connection.
On Wednesday, Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski said he has earmarked $137,000 for improving external security at the memorial site in southern Poland. It is made up of two camps, Auschwitz and Birkenau - also known as Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II - and sprawls across nearly 500 acres.
After occupying Poland in 1939, the Nazis established the Auschwitz I camp for German political prisoners and Polish prisoners. The sign was made in 1940 and placed above the main gate there.
Two years later, hundreds of thousands of Jews began arriving by train in cattle cars to the wooden barracks of nearby Birkenau, also called Auschwitz II, where they were systematically killed in gas chambers.
The camp was liberated on Jan. 27, 1945, by the Soviet army.
Front Section, Pages 8 on 12/24/2009