'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

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Musashi
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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#31

Post by Musashi » 24 Dec 2009, 11:54

The section and the thread is really inappropriate to make jokes.

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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#32

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 25 Dec 2009, 00:07

Musashi wrote:The section and the thread is really inappropriate to make jokes.
Perhaps Musashi, but the sign has been recovered , so everyone can rest easy. Better to be able to joke of it than to have had a locked topic by now if the sign had not been recovered.

Chris


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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#33

Post by uberjude » 25 Dec 2009, 00:18

Just curious--why is it inappropriate to make jokes on a thread abut a stolen sign? I understand, it's a sign from Auschwitz, but it's still a sign.

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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#34

Post by David Thompson » 25 Dec 2009, 00:28

It's Christmas, and the sign is back where it belongs. Let's move on.

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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#35

Post by Andy H » 25 Dec 2009, 03:15

Several British papers, both the tabloids & the broadsheets linked the thft to right wing neo nazi groups, though they offered up no evidence to back there claims. However once the sign was found and the plot revolved around its scrap value, the same papers offered no retraction of neo-nazi involvement. Indeed several took the oppourtunity to have a look in on the 'murky' world of nazi memorablia, both authentic & reproduction.

Regards

Andy H

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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#36

Post by Helly Angel » 25 Dec 2009, 04:05

Any news about the motiv? I can´t found a police declaration or something...

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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#37

Post by David Thompson » 29 Dec 2009, 20:14

An off-topic post from Michael Mills was deleted by this moderator, along with several follow-up posts replying to it -- DT.

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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#38

Post by minimus » 04 Jan 2010, 01:35

Helly Angel wrote:Any news about the motiv? I can´t found a police declaration or something...
Polish media reported today, apparently after some British papers (possibly tabloid), that the original order came from Britain. Apparently some rich memorobilia collector :| Swidish neonazis were only middlemen.

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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#39

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 26 Jan 2010, 05:26

Anybody live in Poland? Where did this topic/HEADLINE go ?
Does no-one care? now? "Kid down a well syndrome"? Katrina? Haiti?
Why was this "stuff" in the H+WC? in the first place?

Chris

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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#40

Post by bf109 emil » 27 Jan 2010, 12:00

Does no-one care? now? "Kid down a well syndrome"? Katrina? Haiti?
Why was this "stuff" in the H+WC? in the first place?
because it relates directly to the H+WC section...

unsure if the statement that no one cares, unless you have been able to secure information more recent along this line, please post, otherwise i guess you might be in the same boat as the rest of us and deemed as a no-one caring member!

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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#41

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 27 Jan 2010, 12:29

bf109 emil wrote:
Does no-one care? now? "Kid down a well syndrome"? Katrina? Haiti?
Why was this "stuff" in the H+WC? in the first place?
because it relates directly to the H+WC section...

unsure if the statement that no one cares, unless you have been able to secure information more recent along this line, please post, otherwise i guess you might be in the same boat as the rest of us and deemed as a no-one caring member!
Sure,

Since it is not "News" any longer( I.E. Is not the latest daily Holo-Headline), Case progress might only be posted in Poland I figure the only people who may know updates. live in Poland and read Polish newspapers, which are not translated to the web. This story will have an end in "local news". It will be interesting to find out who actually wanted the sign.

Chris

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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#42

Post by bf109 emil » 27 Jan 2010, 12:35

from 4 days ago...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8473025.stm

Police who found Arbeit macht frei sign to get state awards http://en.rian.ru/world/20091222/157326133.html

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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#43

Post by Helly Angel » 11 Feb 2010, 20:06

Police arrested ex neonazi leader, sorry but this news is in spanish:

http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/noticia/143480/

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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#44

Post by Marcus » 12 Feb 2010, 09:49

Helly Angel wrote:Police arrested ex neonazi leader, sorry but this news is in spanish:

http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/noticia/143480/
BBC News has this to say http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8510964.stm and here is an Australian report: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/ne ... 5829505240

If it is Anders Högström who has been mentioned in earlier speculation it is a well known former leader of the Swedish neo-Nazi party Nationalsocialistisk Front who as I recall was said to have left those groups back in 1999 and worked with others who wanted to leave. If memory serves he has since then been involved in some legal problems.

/Marcus

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Re: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' inscription was stolen from Auschwitz

#45

Post by David Thompson » 23 Feb 2010, 19:13

02/22/2010 04:19 PM
Murky Motives
Accused Auschwitz Sign Thieves Face Trial in Poland
By Jan Puhl

Five Polish petty criminals are awaiting trial in the case of the Auschwitz sign stolen in December last year. Prosecutors believe the theft was masterminded from Sweden by Anders Högström, a former neo-Nazi leader, and are trying to extradite him to Poland.

Marcin A., 29, is awaiting his trial in a prison on Montelupich Street in Krakow, Poland. The historical building dates from the 19th century and was first used by a military court. Germany's Gestapo later used the basement to torture and murder prisoners. When World War II ended, the Polish judicial system hanged SS guards from the Auschwitz concentration camp here.

In the worst-case scenario, Marcin A., a construction worker from near the northern Polish city of Torun, will serve a 10-year sentence. He stands accused of having helped to steal an "item of particular cultural importance." That's how lawyers describe the cynical "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work makes you free") sign that formed the top part of the entrance gate at Auschwitz, now a museum and memorial site.

The iron sign disappeared suddenly on Dec. 18. Within 70 hours, police recovered it and detained five suspects, including Marcin A.

Krakow's public prosecutors are convinced A. and his four accomplices were put up to the job. They believe Anders Högström, a Swedish former neo-Nazi leader known throughout Europe, was the mastermind behind the theft. Högström claims he is innocent.

The court will decide which statement is true. Swedish police arrested Högström in Stockholm the Thursday before last, and a court will decide this week whether to extradite him to Poland.

Old Mouse and Young Mouse

On Dec. 18, snow covered the cobblestones leading up to the main gate at Auschwitz I, the camp's main section. According to police, four men approached the gate around nightfall. The accused are Andrzej S., known as "Lens" because of the thick glasses he has worn since childhood, the brothers Lukasz and Radoslaw M., called "Old Mouse" and "Young Mouse," and another man who goes by the nickname "Lark." Like Marcin A., all four come from the area around Torun. And all are known to the local police as thieves, burglars and drinkers. Marcin A., who didn't participate in the operation directly, is said to have hired the others, paying each man the equivalent of €1,250 ($1,690) for the job.

The men are believed to have cased the arched gateway together and concluded that they needed tools. They bought a ladder and pliers at a nearby hardware store. Then, at some point during the night, three of the men returned, the fourth waiting in a car. They unscrewed the sign on one side and yanked it out of its mounting. In a nearby park, they sawed the sign into three pieces and loaded it into the backseat of a van. Guards at the memorial site didn't notice the theft until much later. The shift supervisor has since been fired.

While still in the Auschwitz area, the men called Marcin A. to report that the job was complete. Cell phone records later put police on their trail.

The Mastermind Behind the Theft?

Polish investigators believe the thieves were originally supposed to bring the sign to Gdynia, a Polish city on the Baltic Coast. A yellow Seat car with a Swedish license plate was waiting there to transport it to Sweden by ferry. Polish police assume the purchaser at the other end was Anders Högström.

Högström, 34, founded a right-wing extremist political party called the National Socialist Front in the 1990s. Since then, he has publicly declared a change of heart, and even allowed himself to be held up as a reformed sinner at a gala with Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria in Stockholm in 2001. Could he really be the creative mind behind the theft of one of the Holocaust's most important symbols?

Polish investigators think so. They believe Högström either relapsed and wanted to obtain a very special bit of memorabilia, or he might also have hoped to be able to sell the sign to a collector. In any case, they say Högström knew Marcin A., and talked on the phone with him both before and after the theft. A. and his wife had worked for a construction company belonging to Högström's father multiple times in previous years.

The investigators believe Högström panicked when the world reacted to the theft with such outrage, and blew the whistle on his Polish helpers to distract attention from his own guilt.

Politically Charged Atmosphere

Högström bragged to SPIEGEL in January that he had helped advance investigations in the case. He says he was commissioned by unknown individuals to transport the item and offer it to a rich collector. Instead, he claims, he alerted the police.

Why, though, would these unknown criminals have chosen an ex-neo-Nazi, of all people, as their middleman?

Högström has now hired a hotshot attorney, Björn Sandin. Sandin is saying nothing more than that his client is innocent. He also wants to prevent Högström from being extradited to Poland. A Swedish prison is certainly more comfortably appointed than Marcin A.'s cell in Krakow.

A.'s lawyer, Alina Ciechanowicz-Adamska, fears her client's trial may take place in a politically charged atmosphere, since the world at large was so appalled by the theft at Auschwitz. She admits her defense strategy doesn't deny the men were there, and instead plans to argue that Marcin A., Lens, Lark, Old Mouse and Young Mouse didn't really understand the significance of the item they stole. She's hoping to convince the judge that the crime was more the theft of scrap metal, rather than an offense against an "item of particular cultural importance."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/eur ... 70,00.html

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