December 19, 2009

Who stole the "Arbeit macht frei" sign?

Neo-Nazis/Holocaust deniers hoping to prove the sign is fake?

ADDED: Jules Crittenden has some doubt that it was Holocaust deniers:
[I]t could be neo-nazi enthusiasts who want it for their clubhouse. Could be someone who wants to sell it to a World War II memorabilia collector. Or, it could be scrap metal mongers. Turns out the thing is made of bronze. In the past couple of weeks, someone pried off a 100-year-old commemorative plaque at Lexington’s Battle Green, as well as a couple of plaques with the names of World War II and Vietnam war dead in Attleboro, Mass. Scrap metal thieves suspected. If it can be melted down, they don’t really care what it is.

27 comments:

Rialby said...

Can an Islamist be a neo-Nazi?

Fred4Pres said...

It is interesting how those who hate Jews the most are so invested in denying the Holocaust. Very telling actually.

The Drill SGT said...

Everybody realizes that every camp had a version of the same sign, right?

'Arbeit macht frei'

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

... as many hundreds of thousands of tourists visit the site, near Cracow, every year.

Couldn't fees be allocated to hire overnight security?

Havent they heard of donations?

Friends of the museum.. I doonow.

Matt Eckert said...

Did anyone check Cedarford's den?

Unknown said...

Probably some jerk who thought it would be funny, somebody whose knowledge of history goes, "World War II. Hey, dude, did we win that?".

David said...

What's the price of scrap metal in Poland?

rhhardin said...

Arbitrary makes free.

Palladian said...

"Did anyone check Cedarford's den?"

I was thinking his rec. room.

vbspurs said...

Can an Islamist be a neo-Nazi?

Ohhh, yes he or she can.

Don't forget that the Nazis happily dealt with the last Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

Here is the Mufti talking to a member of the Moslem Waffen SS (I bet most people didn't know this even existed).

Cheers,
Victoria

chickelit said...

Arbitrary makes free.

Arby's makes fries

They're pretty good too.

traditionalguy said...

The hiding the decline boys have others hiding the history of Work Them to Death Camps offering a promise of Freedom. The Big Lie methods of psy-ops had its master practitoners in Germany. They were brought over here after WW II to train the CIA into that method of deception saying Good is Evil and Evil is Good. The sign bearing the big lie should be a great trophy for Axelrod and friends to remind them of the long tradition they are following.

ricpic said...

December 19, 2019: AP reports that the gigantic CELEBRATE DIVERSITY sign above the entrance to the Yellowstone Reconciliation Camp outside Cody, Wyoming - established by the Emergency Obama Interim Consortium For Peace and Justice Government to gather, pacify and then enlighten the last of the holdout bitter clingers - has been stolen.

kentuckyliz said...

The same sign should be posted over the entrance to welfare offices.

Tell people how to escape the clutches of the welfare system.

chuck b. said...

"Scrap metal thieves suspected. If it can be melted down, they don’t really care what it is."

Here, the people who steal the scrap metal are not the same people who typically buy it. I'm not sure how it is there, or how I much I buy Jules Crittenden's idea.

Wince said...

People may not realize that the headquarters of the John Birch Society was located in Massachusetts, next to Cambridge, one town over from where I grew up and across the street from the town library I used most.

When it closed and moved to Wisconsin in the 1980s, I wanted to beg, borrow or steal the "American Opinion" sign made of stainless steel letters above the entrance.

To this day I regret not having nabbed that artifact, legally of course.

The John Birch Society is a American anti-conspiracy organization founded in 1958 by Massachusetts businessman Robert Welch (1900-1985) with a largely conservative membership...

All the dues went to national headquarters in Belmont, Massachusetts and the members were to spend their energy writing letters that echoed Welch's thesis that that Communists were already in power in Washington and were about to fully take over the country...

It never had a major impact on politics. It is still in operation, generating reports on new conspiracies from its base in Appleton, Wisconsin. However its main role has always been as a target of attack by liberals who use it to ridicule and smear conservatives in general.

Palladian said...

"All the dues went to national headquarters in Belmont, Massachusetts and the members were to spend their energy writing letters that echoed Welch's thesis that that Communists were already in power in Washington and were about to fully take over the country... "

A stopped clock is right twice a day.

Palladian said...

The value of scrap metal is the reason we have so few bronzes left from antiquity.

Marble's useless once carved into an ankle or a bicep so it usually hangs around.

Cedarford said...

It would be ironic, but Jewish gangs out of Israel and Russia are prominent in the black market scrap metals business......Wonder what would happen if some thief lugged in an "arbeit macht frei" sign to such a fence.
Maybe they would lecture the sign thief and tell the thief to return it if it was worth under 50 Euros. More than that, too good a source of money to turn down.
(To be fair, there are also Chechen, Roma, Georgian Freedom-Lover, Albanian, Algerian Islamoid scrap metal gangs also working Europe.)

------------------
On another subject, Palladian is right that the more valuable the material, the less likely it is to survive from antiquity. Unless the artifact made from the metal (or gem) is deemed worth more kept as is, than the metal...consistently...each year. Or the precious artifact is guarded by a long-lasting power (RC Church) and even then is fortunate not to be lost control of to Vikings, barbarians from the East, Islamoids.

Someone once told me that a gold coin I had likely contained particles that were once part of magnificent pre-Columbian, ancient Roman, AND Mogul Indian art&jewelry. All that is golden, even silver, even copper - gets evaluated constantly by owners and offered up in bad times for survival goods, is taken away, or just gets to a "price is right" situation.
Gold, especially, being readily portable, understood in value - moved readily across borders as trade goods & medium of payment and exchange. (Within 5 years of minting in the New World in 1544, 3 1544 gold crowns were buried by traders in Nepal).
Now, the cycle continues. Desperate Americans are selling the family gold to get quick cash and the accumulated gold gained in America's competitive years when we dominated industries and made stuff - is moving out of America to countries that now make what Americans buy. The copper pipes, brass valves, and aluminum streetlight posts of Detroit are being stolen and cut up for scrap to be sent to China to build modern infrastructure and make goods China will sell at the local ChinaMart in Detroit's suburbs on money China loans the Fed Gov't to give to decayed peoples in decayed American communities.
The gold chains or wedding rings a Detroit junkie gets at gunpoint or in burglaries will be adorning a wife of a Chinese factory manager or become part of an Indian software or call center exec's daughters dowry within months.

Wince said...

I remember one of the first assignements in high school senior government class in 1978-79 was to reseach media bias by analyzing the divergent coverage of a single event.

I went to the Belmont Public Library and chose the Atlantic and American Opinion magazines' coverage of a Democratic Party event. I assume the Birch publication was available there because, as I soon learned, the HQ was across the street.

Obviously the coverage was different. I just remember American Opinion reported that "dildos could be heard 'whirring" in the back of the auditorium."

I assumed by dildos the Birchers were talking about battery-power sex aids, not the Democrats themselves.

But I did get to use the word "dildo" in a high school report. Our teacher is now the chairman of the Sociology Department at Cornell.

Good times.

kentuckyliz said...

Democrat dildo parties? I've never been invited.

Palladian & C4's comments about wealth flows are on point.

I can't blame business for exporting our manufacturing and jobs--they must always seek the greatest cost efficiency and friendlier regulatory environments in an intensely competitive global business climate.

But in the long run there is a price and I believe we're starting to pay it.

hdhouse said...

EDH said...
"....and the members were to spend their energy writing letters that echoed Welch's thesis that that Communists were already in power in Washington and were about to fully take over the country..."

Birchers - birthers - rightwing on this board - Palin...

how did we miss this.

Matt Eckert said...

hdhouse is here. Now you can start your Democrat dildo party.

kentuckyliz said...

I'm thinking I need to start attending those Democrat Women's Club luncheon meetings.

Is it B.Y.O.D.?

traditionalguy said...

Hey Hd...The Birchers are a mentally ill cult. That is not Palin at all. But fire away if false slanders is all you've got.

vbspurs said...

Is it dildos or dildoes? A girl's gotta know these things.

Cheers,
Victoria

vbspurs said...

The Birchers are a mentally ill cult.

Hateful bunch. I spit on their right to call themselves conservatives.