Summary
21 December 2009
Polish police say they have recovered the sign from the former Auschwitz Nazi death camp which had been stolen on Friday. The sign has come to symbolise Auschwitz, where more than one million people died.
Reporter:
Adam Easton
The original iron sign over the entrance which roughly translates as 'work sets you free'
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Police said the sign, which had been cut up and divided into its three constituent words, had been found in a small town in northern Poland. They said five men, between twenty and thirty nine years of age, had been detained and taken south to Krakow, not far from Auschwitz, for questioning.
It's not clear at this stage why the thieves stole the five metre long black hollow steel sign. Its theft triggered a nationwide search with the authorities offering a $40,000 reward for information.
Both the presidents of Poland and Israel condemn the crime. A spokesman for Auschwitz, now a museum which attracts a million visitors a year, compared it to desecrating a cemetery. He said the sign would be repaired and hung over the main entrance gate. A replica has already gone up in its place.
Adam Easton, 大象传媒 News, Warsaw
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Vocabulary
- constituent words
part of a sentence or expression
- detained
kept in one place (here, by the police)
- at this stage
at this time
- hollow
not solid - having an empty space inside
- triggered
caused a situation or chain of events to start
- nationwide
happening in all parts of the country
- authorities
a group of people with official responsibility
- condemn
criticise something very strongly usually for moral reasons
- desecrating
damaging or showing no respect towards something
- replica
an exact copy
