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Poland: Mastermind of Auschwitz Theft Lives Abroad

   VOA News 22 December 2009
   Police  officers  present  parts of the retrieved inscription from the
   Auschwitz-  Birkenau  entrance,  during  a press conference in Krakow,
   Poland, 22 Dec 2009

Photo: AP

   Police  officers  present  parts of the retrieved inscription from the
   Auschwitz-Birkenau  entrance,  during  a  press  conference in Krakow,
   Poland, 22 Dec 2009

   A  Polish  prosecutor  says a suspect outside Poland is the mastermind
   behind  the  theft of the Nazi sign ripped from the gates of the World
   War II Auschwitz death camp.
   Artur  Wrona  told reporters Tuesday that the suspect neither lives in
   Poland  nor holds Polish citizenship.  The prosecutor spoke in Warsaw,
   two days after the sign was recovered and five suspects were arrested.
   Wrona  refused to confirm or deny Polish media reports that someone in
   Sweden is under suspicion.
   Police  have  contacted  Interpol  and  its  European Union equivalent
   following Friday's theft.
   Police  recovered  the  sign  -  a curving piece of open ironwork five
   meters  long  -  cut  into  three pieces.  It reads in German, "Arbeit
   macht frei" - meaning "work will set you free."  Well over one million
   people, most of them Jews, died at Auschwitz.
   Police say the five suspects in custody range in age from 20 to 39 and
   have criminal records.  Charged with theft and damage, they face up to
   10 years in prison, if convicted.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.

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