Police recover Auschwitz sign in three pieces

POLISH police have recovered the infamous Nazi sign stolen from the former Auschwitz death camp, cut into three pieces, and said yesterday it appeared to have been taken by common criminals seeking profit.

Five men were arrested late on Sunday after the damaged “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Sets You Free”) sign was found near one of their homes in a snowy forest outside Czernikowo, a village near the northern Polish city of Torun, across the country from the memorial site.

The brazen pre-dawn theft of one of the Holocaust’s most chilling symbols provoked outrage around the world. Polish authorities launched an intensive search for the 16-foot sign, which spanned the main gate of the camp where more than one million people, mostly Jews, were killed during World War II.