# Auschwitz "Arbeit Macht Frei" Sign Stolen **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 18, 2009, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804 "2009-12-18T23:31:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/41 "2009-12-20T11:13:58Z")
If it were up to me, the consequences of the heist would be an all expense paid trip back in time as a guest of Auschwitz. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/42 "2009-12-20T17:11:53Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Fuck it. Let it disintegrate, rot, be stolen, whatever. No. Keeping the real, horrible truth intact is a way to ensure people never believe that the history books are exaggerating. The ugly past is important to keep around so we don’t forget. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/43 "2009-12-20T17:15:37Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > No. Keeping the real, horrible truth intact is a way to ensure people never believe that the history books are exaggerating. The ugly past is important to keep around so we don’t forget. There are atrocities going on around the world right now. The “never forget” ad campaign isn’t working very well, except for a very limited demographic. ---
**Author:** ![Neverending\_Elbow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e274bd/32.png) [@Neverending\_Elbow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neverending_Elbow)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/44 "2009-12-20T17:50:55Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > There are atrocities going on around the world right now. The “never forget” ad campaign isn’t working very well, except for a very limited demographic. Well, it’s actually hard to estimate accurately how well it is working, as we rather, well, lack comparative data. 🙂 We don’t know how many more atrocities would be taking place if we forgot all of the past ones. Auschwitz definitely made an impression on me. Not that I was ever the type to commit atrocities, but it definitely made what I had up to then only read about much more real. This will sound trite, but just being able to walk out of that place on the same day I walked in, gave me a new… appreciation? understanding? — so hard to find quite the right word — for the fate of the interred. ---
**Author:** ![ryobserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b2d939/32.png) [@ryobserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryobserver)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/45 "2009-12-20T23:29:48Z")
Getting back to “whodunit”–the drunken prankster/ college kids theory has something going for it, but is there any possibility it was scrap metal thieves? I ask because some “scrappers” here in Philadelphia are absolutely shameless and bold as brass (no pun intended). Cemetery gates, bronze historical-marker plaques, public sculptures, the downspouts off peoples’ houses, are all cash to them. Stealing grave markers is not unheard of, and some years back one crew tried to saw down a lamppost on the Platt Bridge–in the middle of morning rush hour. Give them access to Auschwitz and I can easily imagine scrappers taking the gate sign, and the gates, and the crematory doors, and anything else metal that could be pried or cut loose. So what’s the scrap metal market in Poland? ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/46 "2009-12-21T01:15:13Z")
I just saw that they found the sign (cut up into 3 pieces) and have arrested 5 suspects, all over 25 years old, so it seems drunken fraternity prank was probably not the motive after all… ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/47 "2009-12-21T02:04:03Z")
A link, please! ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/48 "2009-12-21T02:11:06Z")
Google is my [friend.](http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jhpYReZvj_AXA9lKGG59sF78nWGAD9CNBR582) ---
**Author:** ![Fionn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/49 "2009-12-21T02:38:05Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > I have, and will always have until the day I die, a biased view of this because I remember being in elementary school and the ONLY thing they taught the class about the Jews was the Holocaust. There was no mention of the Jewish people collectively in any other context - they were shown to us only as faceless, emaciated, naked corpses. It was terminally humiliating and made me bitterly resent the class’s harping on the Holocaust. I’ll never forget the feeling of being part of (what I saw as) a doomed race whose sole mention in our civilization’s history is as victims of an atrocity. It’s a shame there weren’t libraries or bookstores or cable documentaries or websites available to cover the fuller range of Jewish history anywhere near you. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/50 "2009-12-21T02:44:28Z")
I have had this song stuck in my head for the last three days. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/PsGmFMbM4Qk/hqdefault.jpg "Anarchy Club - Get Clean") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsGmFMbM4Qk) It’s horrible, because I keep singing it. It’s almost as bad as System of a Down’s Psycho for getting odd looks. (Psycho, groupie, cocaine, crazy…) ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/51 "2009-12-21T02:47:26Z")
> [@Fionn](#): > > It’s a shame there weren’t libraries or bookstores or cable documentaries or websites available to cover the fuller range of Jewish history anywhere near you. OK, obviously there was but you have completely and utterly missed my point. The other kids in school are not going to seek out information about Jewish history on their own. When you’re 11 years old and you learn about the Holocaust in classes, you’re not going to think, “Hmmm, what a horrible story…I wonder if anything positive ever happened to the Jewish people…I think I’ll go to the library to research Jewish history, or check the TV guide for a documentary on Jewish history.” Come on, surely you understand how kids in elementary school are and how if they’re only exposed to one point of view, they’re unlikely to know anything else until much later. ---
**Author:** ![Fionn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/52 "2009-12-21T03:08:35Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > OK, obviously there was but you have completely and utterly missed my point. The other kids in school are not going to seek out information about Jewish history on their own. When you’re 11 years old and you learn about the Holocaust in classes, you’re not going to think, “Hmmm, what a horrible story…I wonder if anything positive ever happened to the Jewish people…I think I’ll go to the library to research Jewish history, or check the TV guide for a documentary on Jewish history.” Come on, surely you understand how kids in elementary school are and how if they’re only exposed to one point of view, they’re unlikely to know anything else until much later. You didn’t stay in elementary school forever, did you? ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/53 "2009-12-21T03:21:52Z")
:smack: You just don’t get the point I’m trying to make. What I am saying is that AT THE TIME, it was terminally humiliating to be the only Jewish kid in class and having everyone else looking at these fucking stacks of emaciated corpses and knowing that it is the only association they have with being Jewish. ---
**Author:** ![Fionn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/54 "2009-12-21T03:45:43Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > :smack: > > You just don’t get the point I’m trying to make. What I am saying is that AT THE TIME, it was terminally humiliating to be the only Jewish kid in class and having everyone else looking at these fucking stacks of emaciated corpses and knowing that it is the only association they have with being Jewish. Alright I get it better now. ---
**Author:** ![eenerms](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cdc98d/32.png) [@eenerms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eenerms)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/55 "2009-12-21T03:52:23Z")
They found it cut in three pieces. Arrests were made. No motive as of yet. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/56 "2009-12-21T15:41:10Z")
[One source in this story says the motive was money.](http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/21/auschwitz.sign.found/index.html) Since I was a kid, I’ve had huge problems with the way Judaism dealt with the Holocaust. But I don’t think letting Auschwitz crumble is the solution to those problems. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/57 "2009-12-21T20:17:57Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > :smack: > > You just don’t get the point I’m trying to make. What I am saying is that AT THE TIME, it was terminally humiliating to be the only Jewish kid in class and having everyone else looking at these fucking stacks of emaciated corpses and knowing that it is the only association they have with being Jewish. Interesting. My father’s family is Roma…I was always jealous that the Jews got all the attention in the Holocaust stories in school. My (distant) relatives died and few people bother to mention them or mention them as an afterthought (6 million Jews - and some communists and political dissidents and homosexuals and gypsies). Never thought that it might be better not to be mentioned at all than being mentioned only as a doomed race. I’m glad the sign was returned. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/58 "2009-12-21T21:07:20Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Interesting. My father’s family is Roma…I was always jealous that the Jews got all the attention in the Holocaust stories in school. My (distant) relatives died and few people bother to mention them or mention them as an afterthought (6 million Jews - and some communists and political dissidents and homosexuals and gypsies). Never thought that it might be better not to be mentioned at all than being mentioned only as a doomed race. > > I’m glad the sign was returned. Although a huge proportion of European Roma were killed by the Third Reich, there was, and is, much less recognition of their loss. Do you have much contact with, and knowledge of, that branch of your family **Dangerosa**? An ‘ask the…’ thread would be very interesting, if you felt up for it. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/59 "2009-12-21T21:12:09Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Let it disintegrate, rot, be stolen, whatever. Oh, you mean the FAKE sign? You know, if the REAL sign existed they certainly would have access to it right? Instead, they have a REPLICA! Which means the sign was never really put up there (the photos MUST have been DOCTORED!) Which means the Holocaust NEVER HAPPENED! ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804/60 "2009-12-21T22:36:10Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > Although a huge proportion of European Roma were killed by the Third Reich, there was, and is, much less recognition of their loss. > > Do you have much contact with, and knowledge of, that branch of your family **Dangerosa**? An ‘ask the…’ thread would be very interesting, if you felt up for it. Nope - they came to the U.S. and denied they were ever “gypsies” outside of a very few family traditions (that my grandmother left behind her when she married an Italian Catholic) - and passed as Romanian. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/auschwitz-arbeit-macht-frei-sign-stolen/521804.md?page=2)