It was a cruelly ironic sign, "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work makes [you] free"), that greeted prisoners destined for the death camps at Auschwitz.
Erected by the camp's prisoners in 1940, the sign had hung at the entrance to the premises for almost 70 years - until it was stolen in the middle of the night on December 18 2009.

At 5am that morning, an Auschwitz Museum security guard called the Małopolska police to report the theft. A short-lived frenzy followed, as international media outlets turned their attention to the infamous Nazi death camp, while local police frantically searched for traces of the sign. Three days later, the sign was unearthed by the police in northern Poland, crudely cut into three pieces and missing an "I". Thanks to a tip-off to the police, five Polish men, aged 20 to 39, were arrested, but the crime had yet to be solved.

So what happened in Auschwitz? In an attempt to answer this question, Małopolska police brought three of the suspects who had confessed back to the scene of the crime on 22 December to re-enact the theft. They showed investigators how they unscrewed one end of the sign and tore the other end off, and then dragged the five-metre, 30-kilogram metal landmark to their vehicle. Unable to fit the sign in its entirety in their car, the suspects proceeded to cut it into three pieces, still at the camp, losing the "I" from "Frei" in the process, which was later recovered at the scene.

Meanwhile, more evidence began to surface that the five men involved in the theft were simply hired hands performing a job.

Read the full story on The Krakow Post