Auschwitz's infamous entrance sign found

The original iron sign bearing the Nazi slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" (German for "Work Shall Set You Free") that spanned the main entrance to the former Auschwitz death camp has been found, Polish police say.

Police spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo said Monday that police have detained five young men and are planning to question them about the sign, which was stolen Friday from the infamous death camp.

Museum guards at the concentration camp memorial alerted police at 5 a.m. local time on Friday after they noticed the sign was missing. The thieves appear to have unscrewed the sign on one side and torn it off on the other side, Padlo said.

A replica of the sign — made when restoration work was being done on the original — was immediately hung in place of the missing sign. Non-Jewish Polish inmates made the original sign in Auschwitz in 1940.

The slogan was also used at the entrances to Nazi death camps that were part of the Holocaust, including Dachau and Sachsenhausen.

Between 1940 and 1945, more than one million people, mostly Jews, were killed or died of starvation and disease while carrying out forced labour at the Auschwitz camp, which the Nazis built in occupied Poland.

Today the site serves as one of the main tourist draws in southern Poland, attracting more than one million visitors per year.