Theft

[John Wilson]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/de ... CMP=AFCYAH

[mario33]

I cant say how saddened I am. Having a relative that survived that hell alive, I'm disgusted and cant really understand it. Shame !

[Stigroadie]

I must admit it made me smile when I read the article.
Anything this petty thief does just pales beside that of the regime that installed the sign, it's very hard to condemn them against such a backdrop. Yes, it's a crime and yes, it is an attack on a site of historic importance but compaired to what went on behind that sign ............it's nothing.

[reddevil1311]

I wonder - stolen to order? In which case the £1000 reward is most likely pitifully insignificant. There are some sinister collectors out there who want to own items for what they represent, not what they are.

Poor show.

[Irland-redaktion]

Damn shame, that sign was a memorial to the millions that walked under it and a reminder to everyone else that the past was real.

It will probably turn up in the army surplus store in Falling Down 2 if they ever make the sequel, anyway it wont be hard replacing it with a replica.

[Stigroadie]

The replacement is already up.

[Ziggy]

Shocking.



Btw, I'm also gobsmacked that John's been on the Guardian website!

[Irland-redaktion]

Just read the whole article rather than the first paragraph Anyways, if a replica already existed it would have made sense to have switched the two and preserved the original indoors away from the elements, too late now I suppose.

[totenkopfverband]

this'll fetch some dough on the black market for the polish skinheads who probably stole it, and perhaps some day it'll be sold to the holocaust museum in DC. either way everyone wins... poetic justice for all.

[dbloge]

It will probably turn up in the army surplus store in Falling Down 2 if they ever make the sequel

Ouch!

[JDR]

the sign has been found

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8423827.stm

[John Wilson]

Seen it had been found on the news this morning, I wonder if it'll be welded back into one piece? It brings a lot of questions about how ww2 made things should be classed, the sign was made in the 20th century during a war, it was cut in the 21st century therein altering it, if it is put together I think it will cease to be a ww2 period thing.
I know the whole restoraton and farting about with things is a very passionate subject for a lot of people, what's your views?

[Hoffman Grink]

Good call - but this applies to things like ancient buildings. paintings, scukpture and a whole lot more...... If a stained glass window in a Medieval Cathedral is taken out, reglassed in places and releaded - dos it cease to be that Medieval window?

I think the Arbeit Macht Frei sign is more a totem or an icon. It IS the original - it has been vandalised and therefore repaired. The sign is what it is - the original ironwork but the repairs are modern I mulled this over and you know........ If these guys had been as clever as they should have been - they would have taken a replica with them and substituted it. To my mind no one would ever have known then.......... But I feel (and we will have to wait for the reasons to come out in court) that they were removing it to have it out of sight rather then simply nick it for profit.

The sign is now going to go back and it will be there with the scars of it's theft........ It has far more meaning sitting over that gate than it's intrinsic worth - which to my mind is merely scrap metal prices..... it's not particularly beautiful. But above that gate it has far more value than anyone could ever quantify.......... Nothing in my mind to do with Nazis either - just the cold, pure cynicism that man can perpetrate on his fellow man. I find it as chilling and inhuman as the K'mher Rouge making men stand in line and smash in the man in front's head with a hammer before passing the implement back to recieve their own fate.......

What really makes me sad? They are both warnings but they both keep being ignored - not by you and me - but by people who should know much better and should be protecting their fellow human beings.....

[John Wilson]

I can broadly see how you're thinking Paul, in my mind the glass window is a replacement copied from previous times, I always seem to think of Triggers brush in this sort of discussion

[Hoffman Grink]

I can broadly see how you're thinking Paul, in my mind the glass window is a replacement copied from previous times, I always seem to think of Triggers brush in this sort of discussion

That's the phrase I was missing - Yeah - sums it up exactly - Triggers Brush....... Like my old NCB hammer. I was given it as an apprentice in 1976 and I still have it. It's had three new heads and two new shafts but it's still my old NCB hammer.