The infamous iron gate with the words Arbeit macht frei (“Work will set you free”) was stolen from the Dachau concentration camp near Munich yesterday, police said.
The wrought-iron sign, a symbol of Nazi brutality during the Holocaust, was taken overnight.
The Dachau complex, a concentration camp where more than 40,000 Jews were killed, was liberated by US troops in April, 1945. Today, the memorial museum attracts 800,000 visitors annually.
The site is not monitored by surveillance cameras, but is manned by a security team. Police say the gate was taken while the guards were between rounds, and are appealing for any witnesses to come forward.
Bavarian official Karl Freller, the head of the state’s Foundation of Memorial Sites, described the theft as an “ignoble act.”
An Arbeit macht frei gate was also stolen from the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland in 2009.
A Swedish neo-Nazi, Anders Högström, was later jailed for two-and-a-half years for the crime.
The metal sign was recovered, though it had been cut into three separate pieces, and a replica was displayed to visitors at Auschwitz until it was restored in 2011.
