Theft of the gate sign from the Auschwitz Museum has stunned Polish society and evoked strongest contempt for the perpetrators.

Report by Slawek Szefs

"Arbeit macht frei", or "work makes you free", in German. This cynical sign over the gate of KL Auschwitz, the Nazi WW II death camp, meant anything but hope for the millions of prisoners who walked under it. For those who survived the inhumanity of Auschwitz and young generations that followed, it has been a symbol of suffering and a grave reminder of The Holocaust, of what Man is capable of doing to Man, if overcome by racial hatred and genocidal ideology.