The Krakow Event: Tour to Auschwitz/Birkenau

[jeremek]

Tour of Krakow. Comment in English.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0roAijL5sE

[lizzytysh]

I'm in shock and disbelief that people STOLE the sign; and were ABLE to steal the sign. If security ought to have been a given, it was at Auschwitz. Stealing that sign was no small project.

The depth of disrespect and sacrilege is beyond measure. I'm sick that this has happened. Should I say I'm grateful I was able to see it for myself? It was profoundly impacting to look at it and realize the depth of its diabolical manipulation... and to know that this was the exact same sign that they saw and actually felt hope that if they worked hard enough, they would be realized... after all, it was the Camp's motto; they'd seen it for themselves when they got there .

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/19/world ... oland.html


~ Lizzy

[lizzytysh]

This is such a huge relief... even though my fear that it had been cut up bore itself out. At least they have it back. It's of such deep, historical importance.

http://www.windstream.net/wind/portal/N ... pHeadlines

Polish police retrieve damaged Auschwitz gate sign
12/20/2009 5:34:58 PM
By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA Associated Press Writer

WARSAW, Poland - Polish police found the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign that was stolen from the gate of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz after an intensive three-day hunt and arrested five suspects, police said early Monday. The sign was found cut into three pieces.

Police spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo told The Associated Press that the sign was found Sunday night in northern Poland, the other end of the country from the southern Polish town where the Auschwitz memorial museum is located and where it disappeared before dawn Friday.

Padlo said police detained five men between the ages of 25 and 39 and took them for questioning to Krakow, which is the regional command of the area that includes the Auschwitz museum.

Another police spokesman, Dariusz Nowak, said the 16-foot (5-meter) sign, made of hollow steel, was found cut into three pieces, each containing one of the words. The cruelly ironic phrase means "Work Sets You Free" and ran completely counter to the purpose of Auschwitz, which began as a concentration camp for political prisoners during the Nazi occupation of Poland and evolved into an extermination camp where Jews were gassed to death in factory-like fashion.

The police refused to divulge any details of the circumstances in which the sign was found or to speculate on the motive of the perpetrators. They were expected to disclose more at a news conference in Krakow planned for 0800 GMT (3 a.m. EST) Monday.

The sign that topped the main gate at the Auschwitz memorial site was stolen early Friday, setting off an international outcry at the disappearance of one of the most chilling and best known symbols of the Holocaust. State authorities made finding it a priority and appealed to all Poles for assistance.

Museum authorities welcomed the news with huge relief despite the damage done to the sign. Spokesman Pawel Sawicki said conservation experts will have to determine how best to repair it and that the museum authorities hope to restore it to its place as soon as possible.

Sawicki said the museum staff did not yet know who carried out the theft or why and were themselves waiting for more information from police.

More than 1 million people, mostly Jews, but also Gypsies, Poles and others, died in the gas chambers or from starvation and disease while performing forced labor at Auschwitz, which Nazi Germany built in occupied Poland during World War II. The camp was liberated by the Soviet army on Jan. 27, 1945.

Earlier on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Poland to act to find "these twisted criminals that desecrated the place where over a million Jews were murdered."

"The sign is of the deepest historical importance to the Jewish people and the whole world, and is a tombstone for more than a million Jews," Netanyahu said.

_____

Associated Press Writer Vanessa Gera contributed to this report.

~ Lizzy

[Carmen]

How can such a theft be possible?
What twisted minds could conceive such a plan? And more than anything else - WHY?
I am glad the police arrested them and found the sign. Cuts into the iron can be mended - but losing an important fragment of collective memory could not.

Carmen

[kaz]

Police in Poland say the entrance sign to the Auschwitz death camp was stolen to order for an international
collector who neither lived in Poland nor is a Polish citizen.
For the time being they refused to comment on Polish media reports that the trail was leading them
to a collector who had masterminded the operation from Sweden.
kaz,

[lizzytysh]

Cuts into the iron can be mended - but losing an important fragment of collective memory could not.

It, of course, may not be the reason why [and kaz's post suggests it's something else altogether], but my sense is that it's still another step on the agenda of the Holocaust deniers [deny ers] to eradicate the evidence of what happened. Why would an international collector want something he couldn't show, except to other people who have no regard for the truth of what took place there.


~ Lizzy

[kaz]

Sunday Mirror 03.01.2010.Auschwitz sign was stolen for wealthy British Nazi EXCLUSIVE by Michael Woodhead 3/01/2010

Collector wanted it as a sick trophy


A wealthy British Nazi ­sympathiser was behind the theft of the ­infamous sign above the Auschwitz death camp.


The shadowy figure was the intended buyer of the iconic 16ft-long metalwork – one of the Holocaust’s most potent symbols.


The sign, stolen two weeks ago, bears the German words “Arbeit Macht Frei” – the Nazi motto “Work Sets You Free”.


Now a Sunday ­Mirror investigation has ­revealed that the sign – recovered in three pieces by police – was destined for a rich UK collector of Nazi memorabilia, via an extreme-right group in Sweden.


Five Polish men have been arrested by police in Poland, but well-placed ­underworld informants say they were just bit-part players in an operation designed to sneak the sign across Europe to Britain.


“The collector wanted it as a trophy – and used his neo-Nazi contacts to put word out he was prepared to pay huge money for it,” a source in Sweden said.


Advertisement - article continues below »

[kaz]

The next part of an article from Sunday Mirror 03.01.2010.
Had the British buyer gone ahead with the deal, his cash could have funded dissident Nazi ­sympathisers in Sweden who are advocating terrorist acts to disrupt this year’s elections there.


But the operation came unstuck when the crooks panicked at the sudden security clampdown in Poland, prompted by worldwide revulsion at the theft.


The gang fled from the Baltic port of Gdansk and dumped the sign in woods nearby.


It was ­later recovered after a tip-off from a middleman in Stockholm.


Besides the five Poles, police said that “a European mastermind” could be arrested after ­evidence gathered through Interpol.


news@sundaymirror.co.uk

[lizzytysh]

I so hope so. It was an egregious, heartless act.

[Carmen]

For the last hour or so I have kept busy reading ("sucking in" would be more appropriate ) so many of the things that have been written on the forum lately... in my absence. I do read posts from time to time, only I am usually so tired at this time of night that I just cannot find enough force to write things.
But I continue to love you all.

And tomorrow is January 27, Auschwitz Liberation Day. And irrespective of the degree of tiredness felt, I also feel I must pay my respect to those who died and those who were freed 65 years ago.

They will all be remembered.

[lizzytysh]

Yes, it will be remembered, Carmen, no matter the day on which the remembrance falls. Thank you for bringing it here. I'm sorry I missed the actual day, but I'll always remember the people.

It's good to see you here.


~ Lizzy

[SK]

Here you will find viewtopic.php?f=34&t=21192 information about special tours offer to Auschwitz and Wieliczka for the Event participants.

Sebastian