" Arbeit Macht Frei"—“Work Sets You Free . " This chilling shibboleth was weld into wrought iron , and suspended over the entrances of Nazi compactness camp like Auschwitz and Dachau . For decades , these gates serve as a lasting reminder of the Holocaust ’s horrors — but in recent 2014 , a reproduction of Dachau ’s infamous entry sign was stolen . Now , to the sculptural relief of historians and survivors , The New York Timesreportsthat the marker has been recovered near Bergen , Norway .
" It was bump in the open melodic line , " Bergen police spokeswoman Margrethe Myrmehl Gudbrandsentold AFP.“you’re able to tell that it ’s been outside but it ’s in just condition . "
It ’s conceive that the logic gate was pilfered in an organized crime sweat . The 220 - Ezra Pound turning point was originally reported stolenin November 2014.It disappeared on a Saturday Nox , between security guard shifting . ( At the prison term , Dachau had no television surveillance . ) Piotr Cywiński , the director of the Auschwitz Foundation , called the crime “ an attack on a symbol , an attack on remembering , ” in a statementquoted by theDetroit Free Press . “The history of the Nazi tightness camps set about in Dachau , ” he say .
No arrest have been harbinger , but in a motion of accompaniment , Norwegian officials allow the crime ’s original investigators — the Bavarian police — announce the logic gate ’s find . “ We understand this logic gate is an important monument for Germany , ” Gudbrandsen say , as quoted byThe New York Times .
While symbolically important , the logic gate is n’t the original one that hung in Dachau ’s entryway . Prisoners crafted the first logic gate in a childbed workshop , but when the camp was liberate in May 1945 , it was remove . A replica was installed in 1965 , when Dachau opened as a memorial land site honoring the estimated 41,500 multitude who died there before World War II ’s end .
The gate has been rejoin to Germany , and once it ’s restored , it will be publicly expose in either its original location or as part of a lasting exhibition .
[ h / tThe New York Times ]
