Suspect in Auschwitz sign theft arrested in Sweden

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100211/ap_ ... hwitz_sign


STOCKHOLM – Swedish police on Thursday arrested a former neo-Nazi leader that Polish investigators suspect of being involved in the theft of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign at Auschwitz.

Swedish Prosecutor Agneta Hilding Qvarnstrom said 34-year-old Anders Hogstrom was detained in Stockholm on a European arrest warrant.

Hilding Qvarnstrom said Hogstrom will be appointed a defense lawyer and questioned by Swedish investigators before authorities can decide on extraditing him to Poland.

Polish officials have said Hogstrom is suspected of incitement to commit theft of a cultural treasure.

The infamous sign — which means "Work Sets You Free" in German — was stolen in December from the site of the Nazis' former Auschwitz death camp in Poland. Polish police found it in the woods three days later cut up into three pieces and charged five Polish men with its theft.

The Polish prosecutor has said he has evidence that Hogstrom visited Auschwitz with two Poles last spring and told them to steal the sign.

Experts on Sweden's extreme-right say Hogstrom founded and led the Swedish neo-Nazi group National Socialist Front in the 1990s. During that time he helped organize yearly celebrations of Adolf Hitler's birthday and advocated repatriation of refugees to their home countries, according to Expo, a research foundation that has mapped right-wing extremists.

However, Expo said he left National Socialist Front in 1999 after two of its members were convicted of a high-profile police murder, and he then became an active opponent of the extreme right.

Hogstrom has reportedly given conflicting information about his alleged role in the theft.

The Tabloid Aftonbladet quoted Hogstrom as saying he was acting as a middleman between the Polish thieves and an English-speaking buyer. But in a video clip posted Jan. 9 on the Web site of another tabloid, Expressen, Hogstrom said he had simply been tipped off about the theft and tried to stop it.

The Auschwitz sign is one of the most well-known slogans for Nazi Germany's atrocities during World War II and the Holocaust.

Between 1940 and 1945 more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau or died of starvation or disease while forced to perform hard physical labor at the camp.

Design(ated) theft topic

I am not suprised that a neo-nasty was part of this desecration.

It is ludicrous that those who are Holocaust deniers (and make no mistake about it--this is what Hogstrom and his ilk represent) would steal a part of that which does not exist for them. Of course what they hoped was that it would draw attention to their loony ideas, their fifteen minutes of flame.

The act of stealing an iron clad ominous slogan is in itself absurd--this story has a dimension all its own. The space left behind after the sign was removed was a form of non verbal communication that was very clear. Symbols of hate must remain in order to ensure that we know its language, its lesson--never again, and though atrocities still occur, this is all the more reason for such symbols to continue to be displayed.

"Cultural treasure"? Seriously? Not exactly what I would call it...but whatever.

I don't understand people who steal things like this in general. Stupid, pointless, and attention seeking for things that certainly don't deserve attention(aka Holocaust denial and deniers).