‘Work Makes You Free’ Sign Stolen from Dachau Concentration Camp
Image by Wikipedia
Part of the iron gate greeting Dachau prisoners with a sign saying “Work Makes You Free” in German was stolen.
The sign, which reads “Arbeit Macht Frei,” was discovered missing from the former concentration camp early Sunday morning, The Associated Press reported. The stolen section of the gate from the prisoners’ entrance measures about 6 feet by 3 feet.
A private firm provides security to the former Dachau camp but there are no surveillance cameras. There are no suspects.
Dachau, which is about 10 miles from Munich, was the first Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany.
The theft comes five years after the 16-foot metal sign from the front gate of the former Auschwitz concentration camp was stolen and recovered across the country 72 hours later cut in three pieces. Repairing the sign took several months.
Five Polish men were convicted of carrying out the theft on behalf of a Swedish citizen, Anders Hogstrom, who acted as a middleman for a neo-Nazi buyer. Hogstrom founded the far-right National Socialist Front party in Sweden in 1994.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
