German neo-Nazi gang 'developed Monopoly-style game with death camps'

A neo-Nazi gang suspected of murdering 10 people developed their own version of the board game Monopoly featuring death camps and gas works.

Called "Pogromly" and intended for other far-right extremists the game has the names of four Nazi concentration camps instead of the railway stations found on the traditional Monopoly board. Players have the chance to buy Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald and Ravensbruck, with each camp costing 4,000 reichsmarks, the currency used in Hitler's Germany.

A number of sets of the game were discovered in a garage used by the gang the self-styled National Socialist Underground amongst bomb-making equipment and unused nail bombs last month.

Players start on a square emblazoned with a swastika and also have the chance of landing on a numbers of squares marked with the SS emblem. The board also comes with pictures of Hitler and sinister looking Jews. It is thought the game is based loosely on events surrounding Kristallnacht. On the night of November 8, 1938, the Nazi's unleashed a violent pogrom against German Jews, destroying hundreds of synagogues and Jewish-owned business, and arresting 30,000 people, many of whom were sent to concentration camps.

The gang, apparently, produced dozens of Pogromly sets, which retailed on the underground far-right scene for about £42, as a way of supplementing their finances from 2000 to 2011. The games were sold by an associate of the gang Andre K., who has since been arrested, although, apparently, they suspected he was pocketing too much of the proceeds.

A report by the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine said that gang members called other extremists to complain about the lack of money they were receiving from their colleague.

Pogromly comes as the latest lurid twist in the scandal surrounding the operations of the National Socialist Underground. Despite murdering nine men of immigrant background and a policewoman between 2000 and 2007, and conducting 14 bank robberies, police remained oblivious to the gang's existence.

It was not exposed until a botched bank raid last month led to two members committing suicide and the survivor handing herself into the police.

Daily Telegraph

The schoolgirl who survived the Holocaust by fooling the Nazis

Helga Weiss three days before her family were deported in December 1941

Helga Weiss, now an artist in Prague, escaped death at Auschwitz by lying to Josef Mengele about her age and saying she was fit to work

On an Auschwitz station platform in 1944, Helga Weiss and her mother fooled one of the most reviled men in modern history, Josef Mengele, and managed to save their lives. Not long into her teens, Weiss lied about her age, claiming she was old enough to work for her keep. Her mother persuaded the Nazis under Mengele's command that Helga was in fact her daughter's older sister, and she was sent to the forced labour barracks and not the gas chamber.

The story is one of many recorded in a concentration camp diary that was sold to publishers around the world at the Frankfurt book fair. The private journals of Helga Weiss are to be published in the UK for the first time next year by Viking Press, while foreign rights have been snapped up by publishing houses across the world.

Weiss, an artist in her early 80s who lives in Prague and is also known by her married name of Weissova-Hoskova, mentioned her journal during occasional public appearances, but until now public interest in her written story has always been overshadowed by her success as a postwar painter. The British publisher Venetia Butterfield heard of the diary's existence last summer when Weiss visited London for a concert at the Wigmore Hall commemorating fellow inmates at the Terezín camp in former Czechoslovakia.

"I heard about the event and called someone in north London who knew Helga. They told me she was just about to get on a plane back to Prague, but that she was coming round for a coffee first," said Butterfield. "I raced up to see her and we talked for no more than 10 or 15 minutes. She is an amazing woman with a great, feisty attitude."

Butterfield, who also publishes Anne Frank's diary, asked to see a sample of the writing in one of Weiss's surviving exercise books. "We had an academic report done, and once it was clear what the diaries were I went to Prague to see her. Accounts of the past are often shaped by the knowledge of what was to happen next. What is so important about the diary is that it is Helga's reality. You are there with her. It is a very different thing from a memoir."

Before Weiss was sent to the Nazi-controlled ghetto of Terezín as a child, she witnessed the insidious progress of the Holocaust in Prague. "One thing after another was forbidden: employees lost their jobs, we were banned from the parks, swimming pools, sports clubs. I was banned from going to school when I was 10," Weiss told the Observer at the time of the London concert. "I was always asking my parents, 'What's happening?', and became angry at them if I thought they were trying to hide something, to protect me."

The Weiss apartment was handed over to Germans and the family were transported to Terezín by rail. Known as Theresienstadt in German, the city on the north-west perimeter of Prague had become a transit hub where Czech Jews were put to work before being sent on to extermination camps. Her diary, which begins in 1939, records noises that still haunt her; the "thunderous steps, the roar of the ghetto guards, the banging of doors and hysterical weeping always sound – and foretell – the same".

"She was obviously very clever and quite mature," said Butterfield. "She was obsessed with school at first, like any child of that age. Then there are terrible goodbyes as her friends begin to be taken off to Terezín. At each point Helga thinks the worst thing has happened to her so you see how people become used to bad things. Eventually, when the family are sent to the camp they take some cake and eat a little every day."

Butterfield points out that memories of Terezín are not all painful. Weiss grew up there, fell in love for the first time, and spent time with both her parents, before her father was killed at Auschwitz. "My father told me that, whatever happens, we must remain human, so that we do not die like cattle," Weiss has said. "And I think that the will to create was an expression of the will to live, and survive, as human beings."

On 4 October 1944, Weiss and her mother were also transported to Auschwitz, where they faced Mengele, who was directing children and older women towards the gas chambers and fit adults towards the forced labour camp. Thanks to her subterfuge, she was one of only 150 to 1,500 children believed to have survived of the 15,000 sent to Terezín.

She was then transferred from Auschwitz to a labour camp at Flossenbürg where she escaped death a second time when she was forced to join a 16-day "death march" to the camp at Mauthausen. She remained there until the end of the war. "I asked Helga whether it had felt wonderful to be liberated," said Butterfield. "She said, no, it was not that special because by that point she was so ill and had seen so many terrible things it was hard to feel anything."

Helga's Diary will be published by Viking on 7 June next year

Observer

Cash-strapped BNP 'turns to racist hardcore'

Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP which opponents say has suffered a split

The BNP was last night accused of turning to "a hardcore group of neo-Nazis and racists" to stand as candidates in next month's local elections.

The anti-BNP campaign group Hope not Hate said it had compiled a dossier of extremist postings of candidates standing on 5 May, either in council elections or those to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. Among the postings the group collected from Facebook pages were:

• One BNP candidate in the North of England who posted on his Facebook page a mock advert for the gas Zyklon B – used in the Nazi extermination chambers of the Second World War – captioned, "Try Zyklon B. It's a gas!"
• One candidate urges his followers to "Stamp out diseases today. Spray pakis and poofs with hydrochloric acid".
• An activist in Wales, who has a photograph of his endorsement by BNP leader Nick Griffin on his Facebook page. Underneath it reads: "My grandfather was killed in Auschwitz. Apparently he got pissed and fell out of the watchtower!"

The candidate also posted, "Just popped round to see my Muslim neighbour's new baby. She asked me if I wanted to wind it but that seemed a bit extreme so I gave it a dead leg instead."

• A woman, describing herself as a "a big supporter of the BNP leader Nick Griffin", responded to a protest by Muslims Against The Crusades by saying: "They should all be burned."
• Another candidate posting about his arrest for "an out of date bus ticket", says: "They [police] have just made me hate them even more. From now on I will be celebrating the death of serving police officers when they are announced on the news. May sound a bit extreme but I hate them that much." He also posted that Labour's newly elected MP for Barnsley Central, Dan Jarvis, a former officer in the Parachute Regiment, "should have been shot from behind while facing the enemy".

Overall the BNP will be fielding just over 200 candidates in next month's elections – nearly 500 fewer than the in 2007. It said it "was having to cut its cloth" because of the amount of money it had had to spend defending a legal action against the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

Hope not Hate said: "As his party crumbles, Nick Griffin has been forced to turn to what even by BNP standards, is a hard core of neo-Nazis and racists. These are not just activists, but people Griffin is putting forward as candidates for elected public office. They are literally the best the BNP now has to offer."

Hope not Hate, which is funded by the trades union movement, said the party had become hopelessly split – with many members defecting to the English Democrats and the breakaway party British Freedom Party.

The BNP has been engaged in a long-running court battle with the EHRC over its policy of restricting membership to "indigenous British people". It scrapped the rule but the Commission accused Mr Griffin of failing to comply with an order to remove potentially racist clauses from his party's constitution. In December Mr Griffin fought off an attempt to have him declared guilty of contempt of court at the High Court – which rejected the EHRC's attempt to seize the party's assets. Costs were awarded to the BNP but deputy leader Simon Darby said the battle had affected its ability to recruit members and had cost a huge amount in legal fees which had yet to be reimbursed.

Mr Darby said: "Unlike the Labour Party we cannot afford to be £19m in debt and we have had to cut our cloth accordingly." He said the unsavoury postings could be fakes to discredit the party.

'BNP postings' on Facebook

• "7/7 – keep trying ya raghead bastards. This is our country our England our rules. Time2 packup and get the fuck out of dodge."
• "Fly your flag! no excuses. We stock them. £5 to piss off your Muslim neigbours off big style. What a fucking bargain."
• "Going to the polling station was aday out for the lazy African population as they don't work."
• "Unless we stand up and are counted then it's bye bye England."

Independent

Former neo-Nazi jailed for Auschwitz sign theft

Two-year sentence for Swede who masterminded the crime

A former Swedish neo-Nazi was yesterday jailed for more than two years for masterminding the theft of the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign from the entrance of memorial museum on the site of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. The 16ft wide sign, a lasting symbol of the Holocaust which states "Work Sets You Free", was removed from the gate of the former Auschwitz camp more than a year ago and found in woods in northern Poland three days later.

A gang of five Poles with a so-called "Swedish connection" was held responsible for the theft. They had planned to ship the sign to Sweden where it was to be sold. The theft provoked international outrage and protests from Israel and Jewish groups worldwide.

An estimated 1.5 million people, most of them Jews, were systematically murdered at Auschwitz. The camp site is now a museum and serves as one of the world's most chillingly powerful Holocaust memorials. It is partially funded by the German government and it attracts thousands of visitors annually.

Yesterday, a court in the southern Polish city of Krakow, sentenced Anders Hogstrom, 34 – a former Swedish neo-Nazi who is said to have turned his back on the far right a decade ago – to two years and eight months imprisonment for his role in the theft. Hogstrom, who helped set up a far right, anti-immigrant group called the National Socialist Front in Sweden in the 1990s, told the court calmly after he was sentenced: "Yes I accept the verdict."

A Polish court spokesman said Hogstrom had reached a deal with prosecutors which would allow him to be sent to Sweden to serve his sentence. The court also sentenced two Polish men identified as Marcin Auguscinski and Andrzej Strychalski to jails terms of 30 months and 28 months respectively for stealing the sign and cutting it into three pieces to get it into their getaway vehicle. Auguscinski apparently met Hogstrom more than two years ago while doing odd jobs on his family estate in southern Sweden.

Despite his sentencing, Hogstrom's exact role in the theft remained unclear. The former neo-Nazi, who lives in the southern Swedish city of Karlskrona, is said to have renounced the far right more than a decade ago. He now claims to be a member of a group which helps ex-Nazis to return to normal life. Poland convicted him of masterminding the theft after prosecutors failed to turn up any evidence which supported Hogstrom's claims that he was acting as a middle man in a plot to steal the sign for financial and possibly political gain.

Swedish police arrested him early in 2010. Hogstrom also claimed that rather than being arrested, he had turned himself into the Swedish authorities after he realised that proceeds from the sign's sale was meant for a political campaign to disrupt Swedish general election in September which saw huge gains by the right-wing Sweden Democrat party. No evidence has emerged to support his claim that there was a political element to the theft

Polish prosecutors said Hogstrom had admitted his guilt at the last minute. The most likely cause for Hogstrom's change of heart appears to have been the settlement reached with prosecutors which allows him to return to Sweden to serve his sentence.

But whether the motives behind the sign's theft were political or linked in any way to the election gains by Sweden's anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, remains a mystery. Robert Parys, the Polish prosecutor who headed the investigation, said he was convinced the main motive was financial. What is clear is that the gang, whose members were aged between 25 and 39, had clearly not bargained for the international outcry and nationwide manhunt the theft provoked.

Avner Shalev, chairman of Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial was one of the many Jewish leaders who felt outraged. He said the incident had given "pain to Holocaust survivors and people of conscience everywhere."

Despite the rediscovery of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign soon after its theft, its place remained occupied yesterday by a copy. The original – under lock and key at the Auschwitz memorial museum – is being repaired and will eventually take its place.

Independent

Neo-Nazi Anders Hoegstroem jailed for Auschwitz theft

A Swedish neo-Nazi leader accused of ordering the theft of the Auschwitz death camp entrance sign will serve 32 months behind bars.

Anders Hoegstroem, who had risked up to 10 years' jail if convicted in Poland, admitted his role before the case reached court, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Krakow said yesterday.

Hoegstroem was arrested in Sweden on a Polish warrant in February on suspicion of ordering the theft of the infamous Arbeit macht frei - Work will set you free - sign from the site of the World War II Nazi camp in the southern Polish city of Oswiecim.

Polish police recovered the 5m metal sign two days after it went missing late last year. It had been chopped into three pieces. Of the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust, a million were murdered at Auschwitz.

The Australian

How exciting! I've never met proper racists before...

He's got a nice complexion, but Nick Griffin could do with a history lesson. Deborah Ross gets under the BNP leader's skin on the campaign trail in Essex

So, I'm off to spend the day with the British National Party which appals almost everyone I know – "Poor you"; "Say you're busy"; "Can't you pull a sickie?" – but I find I'm peculiarly thrilled and excited.

Perhaps I've always lived in some kind of bubble, but I've never met proper racists before. Once, when I was a kid, a girl down the road called me a "dirty yid" but my mum punched her and that was that, pretty much, and I've never witnessed or been involved in any instances since. Might they wear uniforms? March? Say Auschwitz was all one big, fat, stonking lie? As days out go, it has to be better than a stately home. (Although Blenheim Palace is said to be good, with a more than decent café).

I find the BNP in Barking and Dagenham, which basically means going east on the District line until you fall off at the end. This is where they already have 12 councillors (they need 14 more to gain control of the council), and where Nick Griffin, the leader, is standing as an MP against Labour's Margaret Hodge (majority: 8,883). They are all out canvassing today, and have gathered on a street on the vast Becontree Estate, which is comprised of 27,000 council homes and, apparently, houses 167,000 people. As I tip up, an altercation is already taking place – oh, joy of joys – between a BNP man in a sandy-coloured suit and a fat, white tattooed fellow with a neck thicker than his head and a Staffordshire bull terrier snarling at his side. "You got a problem with my bird, looking over the fence," the tattooed man is shouting, while jabbing the sandy-suited man in the chest. "Next time you come over, I'll hit you with a shovel!"

My God, you don't get this at Blenheim! Hit him with the shovel! Quick, someone find him a shovel! But, disappointingly, the minders manage to talk the tattooed man down. What was that all about? I ask. "That," says one of the minders, "was because Richard Barnbrook [the sandy-suited man, a BNP councillor] looked over the other fellow's fence where his girlfriend was having a bonfire, and he got cross about it." The minder is friendly and later updates me on where dog-fighting is at these days. "They use them Japanese akita dogs now. They can pick up a Staffie and it's gone." He also says: "I can't give you my real name, love, for security reasons, but it's Terry."

Back to work, pounding the streets, along with Nick and some of the other candidates – "I have two mixed-race grandchildren," says one happily, "but that's all right, because we never talk politics at home" – and the minder who would be nameless, if only he weren't Terry. Nick is not wearing a uniform, alas, and does not march. He just sort of pootles along. But he does have a glass eye, which is something. The eye is blue and spookily opaque, giving him the look of a dead fish that's been rather too long on the slab. He lost it while doing up a derelict house in France. He'd been burning rubbish on the fire when a shotgun cartridge, concealed in the rubbish, exploded in his face. "Ouch!" I say. "Didn't hurt at all," he says. What? Your eye is blown out and there is no pain? Pull the other one, although, I should warn you, it is just as Jewish as the first. He says: "It's like when someone has been stabbed, and they don't feel it. I guess it's a natural reaction when you've been injured. You've got more chance of getting away and surviving if you don't initially feel pain or whatever." A car passes. A young black woman sticks her head out the window, shouts "racist bastard" and speeds off. Is that painful? I ask. "No," he says. "You have to have the skin of a rhinoceros, doing this job." Actually, Nick has rather nice skin; he's 52, but possibly looks younger. Your beauty regime, Nick? Clinique? Clarins? Eve Lom? "I've never smoked ... I don't know actually ... it's just the way things are." Clinique, I'm thinking.

The job, today, is to press the flesh and distribute flyers. The flyers come with the headline "New Labour Have Changed The Face of Barking & Dagenham" and juxtapose two photographs. One shows pretty, white young women in tea-dresses, lining a street on what appears to be VE Day, and has a "From this..." arrow on it. The other, meanwhile, has a "To this..." arrow on it, and shows three women in burkhas, one of whom is giving the finger. I confess I have never personally seen a woman in a burkha give the finger but, like I said, perhaps I've lived in some kind of bubble.

Anyway, Nick's shtick, if you'll excuse my Yiddish, which you better had, or my mum will punch you, is that Hodge has been moving Labour-voting immigrants into the borough "on a huge scale" to see off the BNP threat. Some residents certainly believe this. "See that turning? Hodge has filled it with Africans," says one. The BNP even have a leaflet, "Africans for Essex" , which claims that the Government has paid Africans up to £50,000 to move here and "ensure safe majority seats in the future". However, as it turns out, the incentive scheme was open to everyone, not just immigrants, and how many took advantage? Just 39, of which six were white, 15 Asian, 13 black and five not recorded. Just 39, then, in a population of 167,000 which, as far as I can work out, represents an uptake of 0.02 per cent. Come on, Nick, I say. You're a Cambridge graduate. Surely you can see an uptake of 0.02 per cent isn't exactly the worry of the century, or even the week. You couldn't even brush your teeth and make that worry last. It's not a leaflet-worthy worry, is it? "It's symptomatic," he says. Of what? "In the last few years 5,000 natives have moved out of Barking and Dagenham and they've been replaced by Africans. The Labour Party hasn't had a programme by that name, but there has been deliberate gerrymandering."

Richard Barnbrook interrupts. "Nick," he says, "there is a man round the corner who is very angry with the BNP. He says you're the cause of bringing in all the immigrants." We go to see this man, who lives in a house with rotting windows and, for some reason, two lampposts lying horizontally across the concrete out front. "Nick," says the man, "I'll be straight with ya. Because you've got in here, they've [Labour] given 'em [immigrants] incentives from Hackney and every other borough ... That's what's happened." And this is what happens, I suppose, when gerrymandering accusations come back to bite you on the bum. I ask the man: are you blaming Nick? "I am," says the man. Might you want to hit him with a shovel? I haven't seen anyone hit with a shovel all day. Nick says: "Labour are bringing them [immigrants] in to deal with BNP votes, but if you go back to Hackney and Tower Hamlets in the Seventies, when the BNP wasn't there, and the National Front weren't a threat, the Labour Party still swamped them with immigrants, and they'll do the same here in Barking, whether we are here or not. Immigrants are cheap labour, and that's what it's really about, isn't it...?" Whoa, Nick, I say. I'm only here for the crack. I'm only here because I thought it would be more fun than Blenheim. I don't want to get involved. But to say the population is being deliberately manipulated, and to then say, actually, it's all down to the free market... It's manifestly contradictory, Nick. "I'm not a racist," says Nick, by way of reply. And neither is the man on the doorstep. "In 1964," he says, "my best friend was a black man." I say: Nick, why do you always use the world "swamped"? Nobody likes it. "The people round here do," he replies.

What is a racist? If you are worried that this country is becoming over-crowded, is that racism? I don't know. I put it to Nick. Nick, what is a racist? "It's a phrase that was invented by Leon Trotsky, who was a mass murderer, to demonise his political opponents. That's the first thing," he says. "But I think the definition that the ethnic minorities use is prejudice plus power. If that definition is used then, self-evidently, the BNP cannot be racist because we do not have any power."

And if you did have power, what's the first thing you would do? "Get out of Europe." Has there ever been an ideal time to live in Britain? "I think being a member of a yeoman's family under Elizabeth I would have been pretty good, before the theft of Parliament. The people were free. There was Shakespeare," Do you like Shakespeare? "I do, yes." Do you read Shakespeare? "I don't get that much time."

Barking actually has a lower proportion of people from ethnic minorities than most other London boroughs, so perhaps what's happening here isn't about a rise in immigration, but a rise in the fear of immigration. A recent report from the Institute for Public Policy Research even revealed that support for the BNP is actually weaker in areas of high immigration rather than stronger. It seems the less you have to do with immigrants, the more you will take against them. Nick himself lives in mid-Wales, which isn't the most mixed of areas. In fact, my husband is from mid-Wales and I was the first Jew my mother-in-law had ever met. ("What is a Jew exactly?" she asked. "I suppose," I replied, "Jews don't believe Christ was the Messiah." "I see," she said, before going to lie down for the afternoon).

I ask Nick if immigration has had a direct impact on his life. "I'll give you an example," he says. "I was campaigning in Birmingham, three or four years ago, and I put a leaflet though a letterbox and a boxer dog stood the other side and ripped the top off my finger. I went off to get a tetanus jab and get it sorted out, and the doctor there was a south Indian, and everyone else in A&E thought it was hilarious, but I was grateful to him for the treatment." But Nick, you big silly, that's a positive anecdote! He looks crestfallen, then continues: "Britain steals health workers from countries that are far poorer than us and need those health workers far more. I've got nothing against someone working in our health service from abroad, the shame is they were trained somewhere else and we've pinched them." Anyone would think he was making it up as he goes along.

Terry, meanwhile, is wondering why all we journalists ever want to talk about is immigration. Terry, I say, have you seen your own flyers? Terry, I add, why do you go to dog-fights, anyhow? You should be ashamed of yourself. "You can't avoid them where I live, love." he says. I ask Nick about John Tyndall, the founder of the National Front. What are your memories of him? "He was ideologically a fascist," he says, "but a gentle person." He insists that the BNP is not just the National Front in new clothes. What's the main difference? "We're electable." And who is an "indigenous Brit?" "You can see it at a DNA level," he says. "The fact is, if your maternal grandmother was born in this country before 1948, you are about 80 per cent likely to be descended from people who came here when the last ice melted 18,000 years ago. Until very recently, the last wave of invasion we had was in 1066." So is someone descended from a Norman an indigenous Brit? "Yes, as a matter of fact, because one of the phrases is 'before legal memory', which is the time of Edward I."

Am I an indigenous Brit, Nick? "Yes, because Jews were here before legal memory. There will always be a blurring of populations around the edges but the idea we are a nation of mongrels is most bizarre. It's almost a form of inverse Nazi race science." Inverse Nazi race science? Can you study that anywhere? The LSE? "If you have a mongrel race you must be able to have a pure race. As a matter of fact, you can't really have either. You wouldn't dream of going up to a Maori, whose people have only been in New Zealand for a thousand years, and saying: 'You're not indigenous,' whereas we've been here for 18,000 years." Well, the fact is we "swamped" the Maoris, and the Aborigines and the Native Americans. We did more than "swamp". We stole their land. If countries belong to their indigenous populations, as you say, shouldn't we now give those lands back? "That colonisation of other countries was wrong, but I'm not going to let it happen to mine," he says.

We end up in a pub on the Goresbrook Road, where we drink beer outside in the sun. Have you seen Shane Meadows's film, This Is England, I ask Nick. "Yes," he says. And? "It wasn't particularly good. It was shallow propaganda." A black fella walks by with one of those old-fashioned, Victorian bulldogs. It's a lovely dog, if called Razor, so Terry and I get up to make a big fuss of it. "Great dog," says Terry, to the owner. "Cheers," says the owner. Terry, who would still be nameless if only he were, then says: "See? We're not so bad. We talk to darkies."

I think it's probably Blenheim next weekend. Leeds Castle is also said to be good.

Independent

Rantings of a Nazi monster

Dr. Josef Mengele (second from left, with SS officials at
Auschwitz in '44) wrote his diary while hiding in Argentina

He stared at the deliberate German script in the tattered notebook -- the ravings of one of the most evil minds in history, and the killer of 100 of his family members.

"I don't want to touch it," he said.

The Orthodox Jewish New Yorker first laid eyes on the diary of Dr. Josef Mengele on Thursday at a Connecticut auction house. He bought the 86-page journal last week from the auctioneer after the document failed to attract a bidder at the $60,000 reserve price. The buyer has requested anonymity but agreed to speak to The Post about his reasons for acquiring the Nazi madman's innermost musings.

The buyer's grandmother, who survived Auschwitz, witnessed the "Angel of Death" choose prisoners to go to the gas chambers.

"People were terrified to even look at him," she told her grandson. "The SS soldiers were even scared to look at him."

Mengele, an SS officer and physician at the death camp in Poland, conducted nightmarish human experiments, including amputations, sterilization and surgeries without anesthetics. He was obsessed with twins and oversaw gruesome tests on 3,000 sets.

Mengele started the diary -- handwritten in blue ink in a school notebook bearing the image of children with a horse on the cover -- in 1960 while hiding out in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It does not mention Nazis, Hitler or the death camps. But it is filled with subjects near and dear to the mad doctor's cold heart -- eugenics, the superiority of the German race, the inferiority of women.

Mengele meanders from a discussion of aesthetics in "Dr. Zhivago" to a rant on how the mentally challenged should be sterilized so their "inferior genes" would not be passed on. His primary point is: "the simple and fundamental truth that human beings are not equal."

"Everything will end in a catastrophe if natural selection is altered to the point that the gifted people are overwhelmed by billions of morons (this might happen faster than you think)," he writes. He believes that "women's work has to depend on fulfilling a biological quota."

The contents turned the buyer's stomach.

"He shows no regret. No emotion," he said. "If people are looking for closure, they won't find it in this diary."

Mengele eluded punishment, dying in 1979 after a stroke while swimming at the age of 67. His body was exhumed in 1985 in Brazil and his identity confirmed through DNA tests seven years later.

"It's very emotional," said the buyer, who purchased the diary with his parents after reading about it in an Israeli newspaper. "It should have been written in red ink because it was written by a man with blood on his hands."

He said they felt the diary "must be preserved" and kept so "it doesn't fall in the wrong hands or get destroyed." They plan on donating it to a Holocaust museum. Some Holocaust survivor groups question the authenticity of the document and the morality of selling Mengele's handiwork for profit.

The auction house, Alexander Autographs, said it bought the diary from an American collector who observers believe acquired it from Mengele's son, Rolf, 65. Bill Panagopulos, president of the Stamford-based auction house, claimed he verified the diary, matching it with several authenticated war-dated letters and pinpointing the age of the paper, ink and notebook.

Rabbi Marvin Heir, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center -- whose namesake unsuccessfully hunted Mengele -- has been in close contact with the New York family that bought the document.

"I think this family did a very courageous thing," Heir said. "What would happen if Jews didn't secure documents? They would end up underground in the hands of an anti-Semite or destroyed. The choice is: Lose it, or retain it for history."

Mind of a madman

Entries from the 1960 diary of Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele, written while he was in hiding in Argentina:

'As citizens of the Western World, we should abhor the idea of recruiting gifted people from other countries. I also doubt that there’s any need to try because all significant steps of human history happened in Europe, and only Europeans or their descendants achieved them. ’

'Birth control can be done by sterilizing those with deficient genes. Those with good genes will be sterilized when the number of 5 children has been reached.'

New York Post

We are still in the shadow of the Holocaust

Anti-Semitism is on the rise, which makes memorial day all the more vital, says Michael Gove

This Wednesday we remember the greatest crime ever inflicted by man against his fellow man. Holocaust Memorial Day allows us to reflect on the bleakest chapter in the history of the 20th century. And there is a special urgency in the call to remember this year, of all years - because the shadow of the Holocaust continues to fall over the world today.

Mass murder is still deployed as a political tool by tyrants, from Burma to Zimbabwe. Racism is returning to the streets of Europe, from St Petersburg to Antwerp. And, hard though it is to credit after the horrors of the last century, anti-Semitism is creeping back into the corridors of power.

We know that Nazi ideology still has the power to motivate evil men. From the Swedish fascist who tried to acquire the "Arbeit macht frei" sign which hung over the gates of Auschwitz, to the British fascists of the BNP, there is an ominous resurgence of extremist activity visible across our Continent. It is because we face a new fascist threat, and because the extremism of the BNP is mirrored in the equally toxic ideology of anti-Semitic groups such as Islam4Uk and Hizb-ut Tahrir, that we need, all of us, to make an additional effort to remember how the Holocaust started. And where it ended.

The history of the Holocaust is the history of a society which blamed the Jews for its miseries, sought to push them to the margins and then sought, literally, to make them vanish from sight. In our time we can see the same trends returning. The calls for boycotts of Jewish thinkers at Israeli universities, the rise in anti-Semitic incidents on our streets, the inflamed rhetoric of vilification which culminates in the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call to wipe Israel off the map, are all connected.

As the chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, has so presciently pointed out, anti-Semitism is a virus which mutates. Originally it was the Jewish people's religious identity which came under attack, and the Church led a programme of forced conversion. Then, as society replaced religion with science as a source of authority, anti-Semitism mutated so that the Jewish people came under attack on racial grounds. Now it is Jewish identity expressed through the right of Israel to self-determination which is the focus of anti-Semitism. Israel, like any state, makes mistakes. Sometimes grievous ones. But many of Israel's enemies now risk repeating one of the greatest errors of history by infusing anti-Semitism with a new and toxic vibrancy. We see it in some of those who have attached themselves to recent anti-war campaigns, with Britons marching through the streets of London declaring "We are all Hezbollah now" even though Hezbollah is a fascist organisation whose leader is a Holocaust-denier who believes the Jews are "grandsons of apes and pigs". And we also see the apparent mainstreaming of anti-Semitism in comments such as those of a former ambassador who recently objected to the composition of the Iraq inquiry team because two of its members were Jewish.

When prejudice is unleashed in this way we are all affected. As the chief rabbi has pointed out, what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. The Nazis targeted gay men and women, Roma, the disabled and Christians of conscience. The BNP are, similarly, as homophobic, Islamophobic and plain, downright racist as they are anti-Semitic.

History teaches us many lessons, if we are willing to pay attention. And one of the most profound is that the best guide to the health of a society has always been how secure its Jewish community feels. Throughout history the freest societies, from 17th-century Holland to 20th-century England, have been those in which Jewish people have felt safest. And over the ages the surest sign that a country is moving away from liberalism has been a growing prejudice towards the Jewish community, whether Vienna a hundred years ago, Germany in the thirties or Russia in the last decade.

It is because that lesson of history is so important that Holocaust Memorial Day is so crucial. And it is because we must ensure the next generation learns those lessons that the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust is so vital. The Trust provides the tools for schools to communicate the lessons of the Holocaust – so that young people can understand the consequences of allowing prejudice to grow. The Trust provides schools with books, maps, images and artefacts from the past as well as a Bafta award-winning production containing the testimonies of survivors. And two students from every school in the country are given the chance to visit Auschwitz and see the site of mankind's most terrible atrocity with their own eyes.

As the survivors of the Holocaust grow older and we face losing their vivid living testimonies, so the risk of forgetting grows stronger, and with it the risk of repeating history's mistakes. That is why the Holocaust Educational Trust's work has never been more necessary, the lessons of history never more relevant and the act of commemoration never more important. Whatever else may divide politicians, the lesson of the last century is that the resurgence of anti-Semitism requires us all to unite against this most poisonous of prejudices.

Telegraph

Auschwitz asks Britain for help to preserve decaying death camp

'There is only one thing worse than Auschwitz itself...and that is if the world forgets there was such a place.'

Henry Appel, Auschwitz survivor

The guard towers of Auschwitz are splintering, the barracks are waterlogged: the concentration camp where one million Jews were slaughtered is decaying so fast that conservationists have called on Britain to help to save it. The theft last month of its distinctive, sinister sign, Arbeit macht frei (work sets you free) has underlined the vulnerability of the Nazi death camp, stretching over 20 hectares (50 acres) of southern Poland.

“Nobody could have imagined such a horrific act of vandalism,” Jacek Kastelaniec, director-general of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, said. “Now try to imagine the public outcry if one of the barracks started to fall down, impossible to restore.”

Auschwitz was built on boggy ground between two rivers; as a result the high groundwater and bad drainage has rotted the foundations. Walls are blistering and starting to lean, roof frames are buckling, plasterwork and wall-paintings are flaking.

Mr Kastelaniec will go to the Cabinet Office tomorrow to press the Government on Gordon Brown’s promise to contribute to a €120million (£110million) endowment fund that will guarantee the preservation of one of the main sites of the Holocaust. Mr Brown visited the camp last April, and, plainly upset by what he had seen, declared: “We will join with other countries in supporting the maintenance and retention of the memorial at Auschwitz.” No figure has been suggested publicly for Britain’s possible contribution, but Polish sources say that the conservationists are hoping for about €10million.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has said that her country would put up half of the costs, but the managers of the Auschwitz museum need other commitments. Mr Kastelaniec will also visit France, Belgium and the United States. The Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, has sent an appeal to 40 heads of government.

“The conservationists say we need to start work in the next two years if we are to avert irreparable decay,” Mr Kastelaniec told The Times, “and that will only be possible if the money is paid into the fund now.”

The decay of the camp is politically sensitive. The current trial in Munich of the alleged Sobibor camp guard John Demjanjuk is being seen by the public as the last for Nazi war crimes — the 89-year-old defendant is wheeled into court on a hospital bed. Holocaust survivors are dwindling. “In ten years there will be no witnesses,” Mr Kastelaniec said, “and it will be easier for the crazy people who say nothing happened in the camps.” Only the buildings will remain.

Auschwitz cannot simply have a makeover because that would undermine its claims to authenticity, and open the way for those on the far Right who try to deny or trivialise the Holocaust. The strategic point of the restoration is to use its almost over-powering sense of menace as a clinching counter-argument against anti-Semitism and racism.

The portfolio to be presented to the British Government underlines the vast scale of the camp. The priority is being set on 45 brick barracks. The managers estimate that it will cost up to €890,000 to restore a single barracks building. On top of that come 22 wooden barrack rooms — where inmates were crowded into bunks up to the ceiling. Each will cost €310,000.

Then there are the remains of 210 barrack buildings. Some sheds have collapsed, but there are concrete outlines where floors and chimneys stood. Without some strengthening, these foundation markings will disappear. Cost: €78,000 per barrack room. The 27 wooden guard towers need to be reinforced at an annual cost, for the next 14 years, of €62,000.

Work is under way on conserving the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoriums, but the managers want to extend this to include a provisional gas chamber-bunker, two other crematoriums and the unloading ramp.

Property taken from prisoners before they were gassed, now exhibited in small piles in the museum, is also showing signs of age: 460 artifical limbs, 40kg (90lb) of discarded spectacles, 260 prayer garments and 3,800 suitcases that belonged to people who ended their journey in Auschwitz.

The sluggish response worldwide to the restoration had been down, in part, to the feeling that the main burden should be on Germany. Mr Kastelaniec said: “The breakthrough came when we convinced not only Germany but also other contributors that this was not a project about guilt, but about the future.”

Times Online

Auschwitz

Donations to Auschwitz

Swedish suspect says he was middleman in Auschwitz sign theft

The sign "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work
makes you free") is shown by Malopolska police in Krakow

A former Swedish neo-Nazi suspected of involvement in the theft of the infamous Nazi German "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign from Auschwitz said Thursday he was a middleman in the robbery.

"My role was to go get the sign in Poland. I was the middleman and was supposed to take care of the sale," the man, whose name was not disclosed, told Swedish daily Expressen. The paper referred to the man only as "a former Nazi leader."

The Polish daily Fakt identified the man as Anders Hoegstroem, who in 1994 founded the National Socialist Front, a Swedish neo-Nazi movement he headed for five years before quitting. Another Polish newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, referred in its article to "Anders H."

After leaving his party, Hoegstroem, 33, claimed he distanced himself from the movement and joined an association called Exit which helps youths quit far-right movements, according to Swedish media.

Polish prosecutors said Wednesday they wanted to question three Swedish residents over the December 18 theft of the death camp sign, without revealing their names. Five Poles have already been arrested. The men are charged with theft and damage and face up to 10 years in prison.

According to Expressen, the "former Nazi leader" claimed the sign was to be sold for several million kronor (hundreds of thousands of euros/dollars) which was to be used to finance bombings against the Swedish parliament and government.

"But that was not something I wanted to be involved in or carry out, in any way," he told the paper.

"I contacted the police immediately, as soon as the sign was stolen, and gave them all the information I had. I haven't committed any crime. I was the one who saw to it that the sign was found," he added.

Police recovered the five-metre (16-foot) metal sign -- which means "Work Will Set You Free" in German -- on December 20 in northern Poland and arrested the five Polish men. The sign had been cut into three pieces.

The sign above Auschwitz's gateway has long symbolised the horror of the camp, created by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland in 1940 and in operation until Soviet troops liberated it in 1945.

Canada.com

Antifascist Film Day at Bradford's 1 in 12

Click image for full-size

To commemorate the liberation of the survivors of Auschwitz, a day of antifascist films is being held at Bradford 1 in 12 Club on Saturday 23rd January. Drop in for one film or come and watch them all. There’ll be fab food throughout the day, as well as the Leeds Anarchist Black Cross bookstall.

Entry is free of charge, but donations are welcome, and any money made will go to support antifascist prisoners. Doors open at 12 Noon.

Film Times:

• 12.30pm: Hitler – The rise of Evil – Robert Carlisle stars as history’s biggest bastard.
• 4.30pm: The Pianist - Adrian Brody stars in an epic story of survival in Nazi-occupied Poland.
• 7.30pm: The 43 Group – The inspiring story of the Jewish ex-servicemen and women who smashed Mosely’s fascists off the streets of post-World War 2 Britain.
• 8.00pm: Edelweiss Pirates – The true story of young antifascists taking on the Nazis in war-time Cologne.

NO PASARAN!

Antifa

Neo-Nazi bomb plot linked to Auschwitz sign theft

The Auschwitz sign before it was stolen

Thieves contracted by a neo-Nazi group that planned to sell sign to fund attacks in Sweden, Danish newspaper claims

It sounds like the plot of a Steig Larsson thriller: a band of eastern European criminals is contracted to steal an iconic piece of Nazi memorabilia, which is then sold to a mysterious collector to finance a neofascist bomb attack on the Swedish parliament. But today it emerged that Swedish investigators are helping Polish detectives investigate the theft of the sign from Auschwitz, amid reports that the robbery was linked to a rightwing terror plot.

The wrought iron plaque reading Arbeit Macht Frei (work sets you free) which spanned the entrance at the former Nazi death camp was wrenched from the gate on 18 December, and recovered three days later, cut into three pieces, in a forest in northern Poland. The robbery prompted Poland to declare a state of emergency, and provoked impassioned calls for the sign's return from concentration camp survivors and the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

The five men being held in police custody in Krakow in connection with the theft have been described by Polish prosecutors as common criminals who had apparently acted for financial gain. But according to the Danish daily Aftonbladet, the men were contracted by a neo-Nazi group which planned to sell it on to a third party, a foreign rightwing extremist or collector of Nazi memorabilia, with the aim of using the funds to finance a string of attacks in Stockholm.

Boguslawa Marcinkowska, the spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office in krakow, said: "The evidence that we have so far points to there being links with Sweden". Polish state television TVP1 quoted official sources saying that Swedish neo-Nazis were behind the theft.

Poland's justice minister, Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, said: "The investigations have taken on a much broader dimension than we had initially thought".

The Swedish justice ministry has confirmed that it is helping the Polish police with investigations after the state prosecutor's office in Krakow lodged an official application asking for its help.

Separately, the Swedish security service Säpo, confirmed that it was investigating an alleged neo-Nazi plot to blow up the Riksdagen, the parliament building in Stockholm, as well as the foreign ministry and the home of the president, Fredrik Reinfeldt. The aim of the plot, according to Säpo, was to create as much disruption as possible ahead of the 2010 parliamentary elections. It would not confirm or deny reports of a possible connection between the plot and the Auschwitz sign theft.

Polish investigators, who said from the start of the inquiry that they suspected the mastermind of the robbery operated outside Poland, would only say today that he or she "came from a European country".

The five suspected robbers, aged between 25 and 39, all have criminal records but none is suspected of having a neo-Nazi background. They were reportedly set to receive a total of 20,000 zlotys (£4,320) to share between them for the theft. The police told the Polish press agency PAP that they believe a foreign national, possibly the person who ordered the theft, visited the former death camp prior to the robbery in order to be able to plan it in detail.

The theft was carried out without attracting the attention of nightwatchmen or being caught on CCTV cameras. But in their haste to make off with the sign, the thieves dropped the letter i from the word Frei. It was found in the snow nearby.

The wider plot has the whiff of a thriller by the late Swedish writer Larsson, not least because he was an expert on right-wing extremism, a subject which he wove into many of his books. Larsson sought to expose neo-Nazi activity in Sweden, forming in 1995 the group Expo-foundation, following eight murders for which neo-Nazis were held responsible. For several years the scene was considered small but particularly brutal.

There are plans next month to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in which around 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, died. Blacksmiths are meanwhile working on repairing the sign, which stands as a cynical commentary on the Holocaust, in time for the event.

Concern about the safety of the Auschwitz site, which is now a memorial and museum, has prompted local authorities to promise to install more close circuit television cameras and to review its security procedures. Publicity surrounding the robbery has attracted financial donations from around the world.

Guardian

Eugene Zinn dies at 85; survivor of Nazi death camps lectured on Holocaust

He was sent to Auschwitz in 1942. Three years later Zinn escaped,
served in the Czech army, then moved to Israel. Later, living in Los Angeles,
he spoke to students about the atrocities he witnessed

Eugene Zinn, who spent three years in Nazi death camps and regularly lectured about the horror of the Holocaust after The Times profiled him in a 2005 front-page story, died of pneumonia Sunday at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, his family said. He was 85.

Born in 1924 in the Czechoslovakian village of Huncovce, he was one of four children of Heinrich and Helen Zinn. Sent to Auschwitz with four male cousins in 1942, Eugene was the only one to survive. He soon learned that his parents and two younger sisters had been sent to the gas chamber upon arriving at a Polish death camp, and his older brother had been beaten to death. More than 80 of his close relatives would be killed by the Nazis.

"What I keep asking myself," Zinn told The Times in 2005, "is how come I'm the only one who survived?"

While at Auschwitz, Zinn laid brick to build crematoriums and worked in the stables. "Through luck and cunning," his family said, he dodged three sentences to the gas chamber. In early 1945, he escaped from the Nazis by jumping from a train that was transporting prisoners. He then served in the Czech army and moved to Israel, where he fought for the new state. One cousin, Ernest, had managed to survive, and Zinn eventually followed him to Los Angeles.

He worked as a cabinetmaker and attended Los Angeles City College at night. Over 34 years, he worked his way from junior draftsman to manager of engineering at Everest and Jennings, a wheelchair manufacturer.

Through his cousin, Zinn met his future wife, Sarah Haim, a Greek Jew who survived the Holocaust by hiding in Athens. For decades, they lived in what is now West Hills. She died two months ago at 80. In 1992, Zinn took his wife and two children to visit his birthplace and the remains of Auschwitz. After he videotaped his recollections of the Holocaust for the USC Shoah Foundation Institute archives, Zinn was moved to search for his Auschwitz comrades.

While viewing a PBS Holocaust documentary, he saw Otto Pressburger, his "Soul Mate in Years of Horror," according to the headline on the 2005 Times article. The article led Zinn to connect and reconnect with Holocaust survivors around the world. After decades of near-silence, he also began speaking in classrooms about the Nazi atrocities that he had witnessed.

Zinn is survived by his son, Harry; and daughter, Helene. Services will be held at 11 a.m. today at Mount Sinai Memorial Park, 5950 Forest Lawn Drive, Los Angeles.

LA Times

Poland to ask Sweden for help over theft of Auschwitz sign

Polish investigators yet to confirm that formal request to Stockholm suggests Swedish link to crime

Poland will formally seek Sweden's help in investigating the theft of the Arbeit Macht Frei sign from Auschwitz, confirming that Polish authorities suspect a Swedish link in the crime. Boguslawa Marcinkowska, a spokeswoman for Krakow prosecutors, said a formal request for help would be sent tomorrow to the Swedish justice ministry in Stockholm.

Polish media have been reporting that the theft was commissioned by a collector living in Sweden, but investigators have yet to confirm that.

The sign, which means "work sets you free," was stolen earlier this month and was found two days later cut into three pieces. Police have arrested five men whom they described as common criminals who likely stole the sign on a commission from abroad.

Guardian

Why Auschwitz sign's theft chilled me

The "Arbeit macht frei" promise on the gates of Auschwitz must stand as a reminder of the lies on which the Holocaust was built

The theft of the "Arbeit macht frei" sign from the gates of Auschwitz extermination camp is more than sinister. It is an act of abuse against the world's most powerful testament of the depths of depravity to which man is capable of sinking.

The Holocaust was a terror of such magnitude that its repercussions still drive the actions of people not born when the crematoria of Auschwitz and the other camps belched forth their obscene fumes. My own family was not immune from its effects. An uncle, Bernard, a joiner by trade, was one of the first British soldiers to enter Belsen, the camp in Germany to which remaining occupants of the extermination camps were force marched in the dying days of the war. What he saw there was so seared into his memory that he suffered periodic mental illness for the rest of his life.

Other witnesses emerged with a determination to reveal to the world evidence of the systematic slaughter. Among them were inmates of the camps themselves. Survivors of the Holocaust have played a key part in its influence on contemporary politics. They overcame unspeakable trauma to deliver the lessons of the Holocaust to succeeding generations, speaking in schools, colleges and universities, addressing public meetings and placing their ordeals on record.

I have been privileged to know some of them. Leon Greenman, who died last year, is believed to be the only English Jew sent to Auschwitz. In his 90s Leon was still addressing packed public meetings at which he would display his tattooed concentration camp number, 98288. He was driven by an awareness of the importance of his role as a first-hand witness of the atrocities, and of his duty to testify while he could.

Members of Leeds-based Holocaust Survivors' Friendship Association continue the work. I am proud to number among my friends activists Arek Hersh, Trude Silman, and Eugene Black, all Holocaust survivors. Their courage is beyond admiration. But their numbers are dwindling. The youngest are in their late 70s and were teenagers when they fell victim to the Nazis' final purge of Jews in the latter days of the war.

I cannot imagine the feelings of Holocaust survivors when they saw the reports of the theft of the words "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work sets you free") from the gates of Auschwitz. Many read them at first hand as they entered the camp in 1944 when the last huge swathe of victims was despatched from Hungary.

The theft of this symbol filled me with horror, reminding me of the continuing attempt by Holocaust deniers and apologists to erase evidence of the depravity of nazism. Indeed, the theft risked symbolising the nazism's resurgence, and the continuing growth of racism embraced and promoted by organisations such as the British National party. With the sign now returned and five suspects arrested, however, reports are quoting the district police chief denying that those responsible are members of a neo-Nazi group.

It is worth remembering that now, as in the 1930s and 40s, lies are the foundation on which the philosophy of racism is built. The Holocaust itself depended on deceit for its implementation: promises of relocation, a new life in the east, and at Auschwitz the words "Work sets you free." Even as the victims of the gas chamber were undressing for their "shower" they were told to memorise the numbered hook on which they had hanged their clothes, in order to reclaim them afterwards.

The preservation of Auschwitz is vital. It is the world's most powerful remaining symbol of the ultimate outcome of racism.

Peter Lazenby
Comment is free

Polish police find stolen Auschwitz gate sign

The Auschwitz 'Arbeit Macht Frei' sign - damaged but back where it belongs

Police said today that they have found the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign that was stolen on Friday from the gate of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz.

Police spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo told The Associated Press that the sign was found in northern Poland. She said police also detained five men aged between 25 and 39 who are being transported to Krakow for questioning. Another spokesman, Dariusz Nowak, said the sign was cut into three pieces, each containing one of the words. He said the police were planning a news conference in Krakow this Monday.

The police refused to divulge any details of the circumstances in which the sign was found or to speculate on the motive of the perpetrators. Krakow police are in charge of the investigation because they are the regional command for the area including the Auschwitz museum.

The sign that topped a main gate at the Auschwitz memorial site was stolen before dawn on Friday. State authorities made finding it a priority and appealed to all Poles for assistance. More than 1 million people, mostly Jews, but also Gypsies,Poles and others, died in the gas chambers or from starvation and disease while performing forced labor at Auschwitz which Nazi Germany built in occupied Poland during World War II.

The camp, which became the world's largest Jewish cemetery, was liberated by the Soviet troops on Jan.27, 1945. The museum is preparing for solemn observations of the 65th anniversary of liberation.

Independent

Hunt for Auschwitz Arbeit Macht Frei sign thieves

Polish police are using a sniffer dog in their search for thieves who took the infamous Arbeit Macht Frei sign over the entrance to Auschwitz.

Detectives and other police officers were sent to the site of the former Nazi camp where more than one million people, mostly Jewish, were murdered. A replica of the sign, which translates as "Work Sets You Free", has been put up temporarily.

The theft on Friday has caused outrage in Israel, Poland and elsewhere. The theft of such a symbolic object is an attack on the memory of the Holocaust, and an escalation from those elements that would like to return us to darker days," said Avner Shalev from the Yad Vashem memorial centre in Jerusalem. "I call on all enlightened forces in the world who fight against anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia and the hatred of the other to join together to combat these trends."

In Brussels, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek, a former Polish prime minister, appealed to the thieves to return the sign. "Give it back out of respect for the suffering of over a million victims, murdered in this Nazi camp, the biggest cemetery of humankind," he said.

The wrought-iron sign was half-unscrewed, half-torn off from above the death camp's gate between 0330 and 0500 on Friday, said a police spokeswoman. Investigators say at least two people would have been needed to steal the 5-m (16-ft), 40-kg (90-lb) sign.

Police said they were reviewing footage from a surveillance camera that overlooks the entrance gate and the road beyond but declined to say whether the crime was recorded, The Associated Press news agency reports.

Auschwitz museum spokesman Jaroslaw Mensfelt said it might have been too dark for the camera to have captured images. He said the thieves apparently carried the sign 300m (yards) to an opening in a concrete wall. The opening was left intentionally to preserve a poplar tree dating back to the time of World War II. Four metal bars that had blocked the opening had been cut and footprints in the snow led from the wall opening to the nearby road, where police presume the sign was loaded on to a vehicle.

Another police official said earlier that while all leads were being considered, police were focusing on a theft ordered by a private collector or a group of individuals. It is the first time the sign, made by Polish prisoners, has been stolen since it was erected in 1940. A 5,000-zloty ($1,700; £1,050) reward has been offered for information leading to the capture of the thieves.

Auschwitz, which receives more than a million visitors a year, has been run as a state museum since 1947. Germany recently pledged 60m euros ($86m) to an endowment fund to help preserve the camp.

BBC

Arbeit Macht Frei sign stolen from Auschwitz

Sign that spanned entrance to former Nazi death camp in Poland removed overnight

Thieves removed the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign that spanned the entrance to the former Auschwitz death camp

The iron sign bearing the Nazi slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" that spanned the main entrance to the former Auschwitz death camp was stolen before dawn today, Polish police said. The sign with the German words for "Work Sets You Free" is believed to have been stolen from the gates of the Auschwitz memorial between 3.30am and 5am, when museum guards noticed it was missing and alerted authorities, said a police spokeswoman, Katarzyna Padlo.

The five-metre-long, 40kg sign across a gate at the main entrance to the former Nazi death camp in southern Poland, where more than 1 million people died during the second world war, was unscrewed on one side and pulled off on the other, Padlo said. A spokesman for the Auschwitz museum, Pawel Sawicki, called the theft a "desecration" and said it was shocking that the tragic history of the site did not stop the thieves. In Brussels, the European parliament president, Jerry Burzek, appealed for the sign to be returned "out of respect for the suffering of over a million victims".

Another museum spokesman, Jaroslaw Mensfelt, said the thieves carried the sign 300 metres to an opening in a barbed-wire gap in a concrete wall. The opening had been left intentionally to preserve a poplar tree dating back to the time of the war.

Fifty criminal investigators and a sniffer dog were sent to the grounds of the vast former death camp, where barracks, watchtowers and the ruins of gas chambers stand as testament to the atrocities inflicted by Nazi Germany on Jews, Gypsies and others. The sniffer dog led police to a spot outside the wall where the sign left an imprint in freshly fallen snow, then to a roadside where the sign appeared to have been loaded on to a getaway vehicle. A 5,000-zloty (£1,000) reward has been offered to anyone who can help track down the perpetrators.

Padlo said there were no suspects but police were pursuing several theories. Another police spokesman told TVP Info television: "The whole area is under surveillance. There are many cameras there. We are now analysing the film. I hope we will find the trail."

Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance centre in Jerusalem, told Reuters the theft was "an attack on the memory of the Holocaust". Noach Flug, president of the International Auschwitz Committee in Jerusalem, said it "deeply unsettles the survivors" and the sign "has to be found".

Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said the thieves were guilty of desecrating a site of immense importance.

"If they are pranksters, they'd have to be sick pranksters, or someone with a political agenda. But whoever has done it has desecrated world memory," he said. "Auschwitz has to stand intact because without it, we are without the world's greatest physical reminder of what we are capable of doing to each other."

Sawicki said the museum authorities had already replaced the sign with a replica, which was used briefly a few years ago when the original was being repaired.

The original sign was made in the summer of 1940 by non-Jewish Polish inmates of Auschwitz in an iron workshop at the camp. After occupying Poland in 1939, the Nazis established the Auschwitz I camp in the southern Polish city of Oswiecim and initially used it for German political prisoners and non-Jewish Polish prisoners.

"We believe that the perpetrators will be found soon and the inscription will be returned to its place," said Sawicki.

The slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" was used at the entrances to other Nazi camps, including Dachau and Sachsenhausen, but the long, curving sign at Auschwitz is perhaps the best known. More than a million people visit the Auschwitz site every year, but the barracks and other structures are in a state of disrepair and Polish authorities have been struggling to find the funds to carry out conservation work. This week, Germany pledged €60m to an endowment that will fund long-term preservation work – half the amount that Auschwitz memorial museum officials say is needed.

Guardian

Renowned artists contribute to Croydon Holocaust memorial

A holocaust-themed exhibition in the Clocktower is set to mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp

Award-winning photographer Marion Davies and ceramic artist Jenny Stolzenberg will be displaying some of their work in the Space C Gallery from January 8 to 30.

Jenny Stolzenberg has a permanent exhibition at the Memorial Garden in the London Jewish Cultural Centre which, in 2003, commissioned her to create a piece for presentation to Steve Spielberg. Her contribution to the Croydon exhibition will be row upon row of glazed and fired ceramic shoes - replicas of the footwear left behind by holocaust victims when the camps were liberated.

Marion Davies specialises in printing techniques that create distinctive images with enhanced texture and tone from black and white film. Her exhibits comprise a photographic journey into the devastation of the holocaust and also touches on how modern day Germany is confronting the consequences of the past. Admission to the exhibition is free.

A council spokesman said: “Overall it will provide a thoughtful background and context for the annual Holocaust Memorial Day activity which takes place in the Town Hall on Wednesday January 27.”

The main library is due to host a story-telling session for adults about the heroism of some of those affected by the holocaust. At midday the annual public candle lighting ceremony will be presided over by the Mayor, Councillor Margaret Mead, in the Town Hall foyer. The occasion will again feature the reading of the Holocaust Memorial Day pledge. This will be followed by a civic event at 12.30pm in the council chamber.

Councillor Gavin Barwell, Croydon’s cabinet member for safety and cohesion said: “With its thought provoking pictures and artefacts, we believe the event will better help people understand the importance of ensuring the horrific holocaust is never forgotten.”

Croydon Guardian

Nazi hunter vows to bring last Hitler criminals to justice

Dr. Efraim Zuroff, chief investigator of Nazi war criminals for the
Simon Wiesenthal Center, talks to the media about his efforts to bring Nazi war
criminals to justice during a press conference at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles

They're now old, feeble, beloved by their children and grandkids - and accused of abetting the murder of millions

Six decades after the Holocaust, the world's leading Nazi hunter vowed Thursday to either bring the last of Hitler's war criminals to justice or pursue them to their graves.

"Contrary to public perception that it's too late, that's certainly not the case," said Efraim Zuroff, chief Nazi hunter for the renowned Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "We have three to five years until we won't be able to do this anymore."

Zuroff, director of the center's Israeli office, was at the center's Museum of Tolerance to release its annual report on the prosecution of some of the world's most evil men and women. He was also in town to promote his book, "Operation Last Chance: One Man's Quest to Bring Nazi Criminals to Justice."

The good news: Four of the center's 10 most wanted Nazi war criminals may soon stand trial. They include Ivan Demjanjuk, a former American accused of helping slaughter Jews in several Waffen SS death camps, whose trial in Germany begins Nov. 30. Also about to face justice is Sandor Kepiro, a Hungarian accused of helping to kill 1,200 civilians. And Charles Zentai, alleged to have helped kill Jews in Hungary, whose extradition from Australia was approved last week. And Heinrich Boere, an alleged hit man for the SS in Holland, now awaiting trial in Germany.

The Simon Wiesenthal report listed 706 ongoing investigations of Nazi war criminals in two dozen countries, including 85 new cases between April 2008 through March 2009. During that period, six Nazis were convicted in Italy.

The bad news: Many nations still refuse to prosecute aging Nazis. At the top of the most-wanted list is Alois Brunner, a key SS operative responsible for the deportation of 128,500 Jews to concentration camps. He may be in Syria. He may be dead.

"It's not that hard to actually find these people. It's not even that hard to find the evidence for these people," said Zuroff, who considers himself part detective, part historian and part political lobbyist. "What is incredibly hard is to get countries that are reluctant to bring Nazi war criminals to justice, to do the right thing and to bring them to trial."

Among the countries that got failing grades for not going after Nazis: Australia, Austria, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Syria and the Ukraine. Canada, which has never deported a single Nazi, scored a D.

The United States got top marks for helping bring 37 of the 82 war criminal convictions worldwide, while stripping 75 Nazis of their citizenship and deporting 56.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said others may defend Nazi fugitives as old, feeble and forgetful and not worth prosecution. But they have been able to live fruitful lives, he said, while their victims did not.

"As long as a Nazi war criminal is still alive, they should know that there's someone looking for them," Hier said. "When you hunt a Nazi war criminal, all Nazi war criminals in the world feel vulnerable."

Holocaust survivors and their children agreed. Sol Teichman, his brother Samuel and their father were the only family members to survive the Nazi scourge. After surviving Auschwitz and a death march to Dachau where 6,000 fell, they were among the first Jewish refugees admitted to the U.S.

"We should go after them... they should not be forgiven," said Sol Teichman, 82, of Encino, a native of Czechoslovakia. "I lost 100 members of my immediate family... It's something I cannot forget, nor can I forgive."

"I want to see justice done," added the daughter of an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor in Camarillo, who asked that her name not be used. "I'd love to see 'em hang from a tree and let me at 'em."

Los Angeles Daily News