Sign recovered

Police in Krakow, southern Poland, told reporters on Monday it was too early to tell what the motive behind the theft of the Auschwitz sign really was. However, the five suspects arrested when the sign was recovered are not members of a neo-Nazi group. The men do have criminal records for either violence or theft.

"We can say that none of the five are members of a neo-Nazi group," Andrzej Rokita, district police chief in the city of Krakow, told a news conference. "Their intent was undoubtedly robbery related. We will be able to decide later whether the crime was ordered or whether they acted on their own initiative."

The five men, aged 20 to 39, are believed to have stolen the infamous "Arbeit macht frei" sign, which hung over the entrance to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz, at dawn on Friday. Police recovered the sign, cut into three pieces, near the home of one of the suspects.

"The sign had been cut into three pieces at the site of the theft, to make it easier to transport. It had been hidden in a wood near the home of one of the thieves," Rokita said.

When intact, the sign was five meters long. Its cynical message "work sets you free" became a symbol of the efforts of the Nazis to deceive their victims. Over a million people, mostly Jews, perished in the Nazi death camp in southern Poland during World War Two - most of the site became a museum and memorial after the war ended.

Intensive search

The five alleged thieves were captured after Poland stepped up border security, set up roadblocks, deployed a team of around 40 forensic experts and sought the help of international policing bodies Interpol and Europol in a bid to recover the sign.

The Auschwitz museum offered a 100,000-zloty reward (24,000 euros or $34,000) for information which would help to recapture the sign, and Polish police offered a further 5,000 zlotys.

Friday's theft sparked condemnation from world leaders, Jewish groups and Holocaust survivors.

"A worldwide symbol of the cynicism of Hitler's executioners and the martyrdom of their victims has been stolen," Polish president Lech Kaczynski said after the theft.

Auschwitz, visited by one million people last year, was one of a network of camps set up to kill some 6 million Jews, along with members of other ethnic, religious, political, or social groups that Hitler's regime wanted to eliminate.

msh/AFP/AP/Reuters

Editor:Michael Lawton