Auschwitz death camp sign stolen

[demoleft]

Source: bbc

The infamous Arbeit Macht Frei sign at the entrance to the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Poland has been stolen, officials there say.

The sign was taken from above the gate overnight. Police are looking for the culprits.

It is the first time the sign, made by prisoners, has been stolen since it was erected in the early 1940s.
...
"It's a terrible thing," Auschwitz official Pawel Sawicki told the BBC.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8419948.stm

[proteus_lives]

1. Bad idea.

Sounds like the beginning of an episode of The Twilight Zone or Tales From the Darkside. Someone's going dragged into hell by SS ghosts or sent back into time to live as camp victim.

Jesus, someone thought that would be a good idea?

[Meldread]

2. Anti-Semitism is very high in Poland.

"On the topic of anti-Semitism, 41.2 percent of Europeans overall agreed with the anti-Semitic stereotype that Jews try to use the Holocaust for their own benefit. According to the study, 72 percent of Poles—the highest of any country—agreed with the statement, while Dutch citizens were least likely to agree, at 5.6 percent.

Nearly one-quarter of all Europeans agreed with the statement that “Jews have too much influence.” Almost one-third agreed that “Jews in general do not care about anything or anyone but their own kind.”

Link http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/news/jt/international_news/study_anti-semitism_homophobia_on_rise_in_europe/15962">here.

Many idealize Europe as a liberal utopia, but when you take the above, this event, and recent events in France and Switzerland against Muslims... yeah, it really paints the picture about the grass always seeming greener on the other side.

[pampango]

7. Interesting information at the link you provided. Thanks.

"Anti-Semitism and homophobia are on the rise in Europe, according to an annual study of social trends involving xenophobia."

"The study, released Sunday, found that fear of Islam and hatred of Muslims has dropped slightly since 2008 in Europe, and that general xenophobia, sexism and racism have declined as well. Overall, Germans are no more xenophobic now than in 2002, when the first study was conducted."

"But an increase in anti-Semitism could be linked to economic fears, social psychologist Beate Kupper told reporters Sunday. “Whoever feels threatened by immigration is not only hostile to immigrants but is also anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, sexist and anti-gay,” she said.

An international team of social scientists found that French and Dutch respondents were the least xenophobic, while Poles and Hungarians had the highest levels of hatred toward Jews, Muslims, foreigners and homosexuals."
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Seems that the more of those who are anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic are in Eastern Europe where the last 20 years have seen many changes - political, economic, cultural and opening up to the rest of the world. Perhaps the passage of time will cause their attitudes to become more like those in Western Europe.

My impression is that Europe is far from a "liberal utopia". While their societies are much more progressive than ours, they have problems with unemployment, racism, sending troops to war, etc, if not to the extent that we have. One of their big problems is a resurgent far-right wing which takes pride in being "anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic". As you say, witness events in France and most recently, Switzerland. Their far-right wing is able to play on people's fears (as they do here so well) to achieve their own goals.

[AngryAmish]

8. Eastern Europe has always been anti-semetic

Same as western europe. In fact, racism is the default position in mankind. Ask how Han Chinese feel about manchurians, or Japanese and vice versa.

[izquierdista]

14. Always?

King Kazimierz was favorably disposed toward Jews. On 9 October 1334, he confirmed the privileges granted to Jewish Poles in 1264 by Bolesław V the Chaste. Under penalty of death, he prohibited the kidnapping of Jewish children for the purpose of enforced Christian baptism. He inflicted heavy punishment for the desecration of Jewish cemeteries.

Although Jews had lived in Poland since before the reign of King Kazimierz, he allowed them to settle in Poland in great numbers and protected them as people of the king. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_III_the_Great

In case you were wondering why most of the Jews ended up in Eastern Europe.

[oberliner]

29. Also from Wikipedia

By the reign of King Jogaila (reigned in Poland 1386-1434), however, relations had deteriorated and pogroms began to occur with increasing frequency. As part of the re-founding of the Cracow Academy, starting in 1400, the Academy began to buy out buildings in the old Jewish district. The Jewish community moved to the area around modern Plac Szczepański. During the last decade of the fifteenth century anti-Semitism led many Jews to move out of Kraków to nearby Kazimierz<1>. There, they built a Fortress synagogue, the Old Synagogue (Kraków). In 1494 a disastrous fire destroyed a large part of Kraków. Raging populace soon attacked the Jews, blaming the fire on them. In 1495 the Polish king John I Albert of Poland expelled all Jews from Kraków, resettling them to the old Bawół district of Kazimierz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz

[Meldread]

23. Yeah, that's my point.

It is easy for us to sometimes look to places like Europe and believe them to be more "advanced" societies than our own in terms of liberalism. The reality is much different. They have many of the same issues that we do, and are susceptible to the same weaknesses. One area that America clearly outshines Europe is our ability to assimilate new populations into our nation. As a consequence, perhaps, we also seem to have a greater ability to accept wide ranges of diversity.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

19. No surprise. They're embracing Christian fundamentalism like there's no tomorrow. -nt

[roguevalley]

27. Romanish people get hell. True hell.

[Behind the Aegis]

3. The culprits, who could they be?

I see four possibilities:

1) Neo-Nazis -- keepsake, a "relic"
2) thrill-seekers -- thrill, notoriety
3) dare -- exceptional target
4) anti-Israel -- propaganda tool, mockery

Others? I guess it could be random, always a possibility. Hell, it could even be an over-eager historian.

[Chan790]

11. 5. Drunken morons?

I had a friend in college who used to get drunk in DC and steal "keepsakes" in the dead of night. Not always valuable or useful things, but random crap that seemed important at the time or collectible. He came strolling in one day with the brass address plaque he'd taken off the brick-wall of an embassy (S. Korea, I think). Another time it was the tensa-barrier from outside the Air and Space Museum. Glassware from The Irish Times. Construction company signs (you know "Another fine home by HouseCo.") He even stole a 150-lb. trash can made from concrete off of campus.

You can never discount the idiocy of drunken theft. I guess that might be #2 or #3 though.

[rasputin1952]

4. The symbolic image has been a focal point for decades...

In some ways, it has become as well known as a swastika.

I recall, as a young child seeing that B&W image, the rails, the very cold it portrayed...even before I knew what it was about, I knew it was symbolic of evil incarnate.

I don't know about anyone else, but for me, it is as if looting from a museum. It is a crime against history, a crime against human conscience, an act that people everywhere should be ashamed of.

The thought of what went on there, and in other camps, the horror, the screams, the death...a monument to human depravity, and somehow, someone could actually get just little lower on the scale. May the conscience of the millions rise up and strike the perpetrator(s) with such guilt they fall on their knees and ask for forgiveness from the souls of those who were felled under the horror, and may they be thankful they did not have to go through what those millions in death camps had to face.

[saigon68]

5. Ignorant Knuckle Draggers

looting from a museum

Its more than stealing a sign. Its a Hate Crime pure and simple

[rasputin1952]

6. In the NYT's story on this, it happened one day after Berlin

provided $90 million for the restoration/preservation of the site. That probably had something to do w/this act...and yes, they are knuckle draggers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/19/world/europe/19poland.html?hp

[n2doc]

9. Citicorp needed it more n/t

[cali]

22. idiotic and yes, offensive comparison.

[Codeine]

25. Fail.

Douchebaggery isn't funny.

[Robb]

10. A friend once told me

...when he visited minefield areas in Vietnam, the guide told him they had to spend huge amounts of money replacing the "danger - mine field" signs (in six languages) because people kept stealing them.

Think about that. People walk into a mine field area to steal a sign that warns others not to walk into a mine field.

Freakin' people.

[Coventina]

13. Same thing happens in Cambodia. n/t

[phatkatt]

12. It will bring a nice price on the black market.

Remember the movie "American Beauty"?

"There is a whole subculture that collects this Nazi shit".

[StarfarerBill]

15. Auschwitz Sign Stolen: 'Arbeit Macht Frei' Sign Taken From Main Entrance

Source: Associated Press

OSWIECIM, Poland — The Nazis' infamous iron sign declaring "Arbeit Macht Frei" – German for "Work Sets You Free" – was stolen Friday from the entrance of the former Auschwitz death camp, Polish police said.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/18/auschwitz-sign-stolen-arb_n_396860.html

[Turbineguy]

16. Those repub pranksters!

Maybe they could put it up in the US Capitol building.

[onehandle]

17. Teabaggers trying to erase proof of the Holocaust. nt

[Earth_First]

18. Anyone contact Yale yet? n/t

[Brickbat]

20. Sick and sad.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

21. Pic of sign

[Xenotime]

24. I see the GOP has started their 2010 campain.

I would expect to see it as a hood ornament on one of their SUVs.

[m3e92man8850]

26. stupid thing to do

[oberliner]

28. Neo-Nazis suspected of raid on Auschwitz ‘to rewrite history’

The slickly organised theft of one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust sent a wave of outrage around the world yesterday.

The sign that hung over the gates of Auschwitz extermination camp, where more than a million people died during the Second World War, was stolen in minutes. Polish police suspect that the culprits were either neo-Nazis or acting on behalf of collectors or a group of individuals.

The slogan wrought in iron, Arbeit Macht Frei (“Work sets you free”), was the cynical welcome to those entering the camp in the 1940s. One million of the 1.1 million people who died at Auschwitz were Jewish.

The theft in the early hours of yesterday was seen as an attempt by right-wing extremists to muddy the narrative of the Holocaust

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6962317.ece

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

30. Obama probably stole it for his trophy room...

...full of heads that his deathcare proposal will create. With death.

[Behind the Aegis]

31. If your comment is meant to be "sarcastic," it is in poor taste.

If your comment is something other than sarcasm, then it is another "FAIL" as exemplified by the idiotic and disgusting post #9.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

38. My apologies.

Obviously it was intended as sarcasm, directed mainly at the idjits who keep yelling about how the current health care proposal is "fascism." As if they had any idea what that term really meant. But yeah, I agree it was in poor taste. I'm sorry.

[cali]

32. well, your post can be summed up in one word: Moronic.

[Blandocyte]

33. Now there's someone who's not afraid of going to hell

Sheesh.

[panzerfaust]

34. RNC needed it for their Christmas party

least we forget what the master race brought us

[RFKHumphreyObama]

35. Words cannot adequately describe how despicable I think this is

I hope the offenders are caught and pay dearly for their evil, perverted, selfish actions

[jmowreader]

36. I think it was a Holocaust-denying act, and we'll never find the sign

My take:

Whoever stole this thing knows they use it as a monument to the three million people (not all Jews) who died at Auschwitz. Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany and probably Poland also, but never mind that; you can't eradicate hate just by banning it.

I figure whoever took the sign, which is made of cast iron, cut it up and took the pieces to three or four scrapyards--spreading it out because if they took all the pieces to the same place, someone might notice the thing looked familiar. Next year it will be the basis for the springs on new cars.

[madmx19790]

37. god i hate vandals