2011: Frenchman arrested for stealing barbed wire from Auschwitzhttp://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/breaking-news/frenchman-arrested-for-stealing-barbed-wire-from-auschwitz/story-e6frea73-1226060009689 (http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/breaking-news/frenchman-arrested-for-stealing-barbed-wire-from-auschwitz/story-e6frea73-1226060009689)
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The Six Gorillian Survivor Reunion
A FRENCHMAN was arrested yesterday for stealing two pieces of barbed wire from the Nazi German-era death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in southern Poland, officials said.
The man, in his fifties, was detained after a scanner detected the wire in his hand luggage during a security check at the airport in Krakow, 60 kilometres from the site of the camp.
"He admitted having taken the pieces as a souvenir of his visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau," said airport spokesman Marcin Pulit.
The man's name was not disclosed.
Jaroslaw Mensfelt, spokesman of the Polish state-run memorial and museum at the site, condemned the theft.
"This was an act of desecration of a place of memory. Every object here is priceless," he said.
Update - 2012 | Prison for Whitey - Freedom for Jewish Thieves | From Jewish Sourceshttps://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2012-08-13/ty-article/italian-cleared-of-stealing-auschwitz-barbed-wire/0000017f-ed68-d0f7-a9ff-efedaac70000
Excerpt: A 66-year-old Italian man has been released without being charged after he was questioned over the alleged theft of a piece of barbed wire from Auschwitz museum, Polish police said Sunday.
The man said he had taken the wire as a memento to
his father who died at Auschwitz.
In 2009 the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" (German for "Work Makes You Free") sign was stolen from the main gate that led into Auschwitz. Four Poles and a Swedish man received prison terms of some 18 months for the theft.
Earlier this year
an Israeli couple, identified only as Mordechai and Dominique P., were given suspended 16-month prison terms for stealing historic items from the museum grounds in June 2011.
Between 1940-45, some 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, died in Auschwitz
gas chambers or from hunger, disease and forced labor.