Arbeit macht frei: - Fredrick Töben

led police to believe the sign was removed from the camp compound
through a hole in the fence before being loaded into a van. After that any
trail of the thieves has been lost.
Authorities in the region announced a state of emergency as the hunt for
the sign was launched and a nationwide appeal went out urging anyone
with any information to contact police. A 5,000 zloty (£1,000) reward was
being offered to anyone with information that would lead to the criminals
or the whereabouts of the sign. Police were today replaying hours of video
footage from the CCTV cameras at the Auschwitz site, which is now a
museum.
The Polish ambassador to Israel, Agnieszka Magdziak-Miszewska, said
that it was believed the robbery had been ‘meticulously planned, because
they were not caught on security cameras’. She added: ‘Finding the metal
sign has become a national priority.’
Approximately 1.5 million people, mainly Jews, died in Auschwitz which
was built in Nazi-occupied Poland. About 500 acres of the former death
camp was turned into a museum after the end of the war.
The Arbeit Macht Frei sign was erected by prisoners with metalwork skills
on Nazi orders in June 1940, and was a cynical take on the title of an 1873
work by the lexicographer, linguist and novelist Lorenz Diefenbach in
which gamblers and fraudsters discover the path to virtue through hard
work.
Museum officials have placed a replica of the sign above the gates which
was used several years ago while the original was being repaired.
This article was amended on Monday 21 December 2009 to correct the spelling
of Oświęcim.
Survivor’s story
Benjamin Jacobs, a Jewish dental student from Poland, spent five years in
Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz. He died in 2004. In this
extract from his memoir, The Dentist of Auschwitz, he recalls seeing the
sign ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ for the first time. ‘Traumatised, starved, and
soaked with human waste, we looked to be the inhuman, useless creatures
the Nazis had characterized us as being. This camp did not look like any I
had seen before. Along the inside ran what seemed to be an electric line.
Perched above in towers were green-uniformed Waffen SS. Their guns
pointed into the camp. ‘As we were driven further, we heard an orchestra
playing and people singing. ‘Today Poland. Tomorrow the entire world,’
they sang in German. Each refrain had a different verse and mentioned a
different country. When the trucks stopped, we heard: ‘We’re marching
on England today, and tomorrow on the entire world!’ ‘A sign at the gate
read: ‘Stop, high voltage!’ Above the gate another sign read ‘Auschwitz’,
and below it, ‘Arbeit Macht Frei.’ We knew it wasn’t meant to be a
31