Arbeit macht frei gate stolen

The iconic gate at the Dachau concentration camp, with the inscription that translates to Work makes free, is stolen. Security officials note that whoever took the 75-by-37-inch gate – which is set into a larger iron gate – during the night would have had to climb over another gate to reach it. The camp’s Memorial director explains the gate’s significance:

…the central symbol for the prisoners’ ordeal

The Yad Vashem Holocaust centre says the motive is unknown but the theft is significant:

[T]he theft of such a symbolic object is an offensive attack on the memory of the Holocaust.

The Work makes free sign at the Auschwitz concentration camp was stolen in 2009, with a Swedish man with neo-Nazi ties found responsible for instigating the theft.