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TOP STORIES / World / Europe


Swedish neo-Nazi sentenced for Auschwitz sign theft

A Swedish man has been sentenced to 32 months in prison for stealing the sign from the Auschwitz concentraion camp in Poland. Two of his Polish co-conspirators also received jail sentences. More than one million people died in Auschwitz

A Polish court has sentenced a Swedish man to two years and eight months behind bars by for stealing the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work makes you free") sign from the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp.

Anders Hogstrom will be transferred to Sweden to serve his sentence, according to Rafal Lisak, a spokesman for the regional court in the Polish city of Krakow.

In November, Hogstroem, the founder of a Swedish neo-Nazi movement "National Socialist Front," struck a plea bargain with Polish prosecutors, admitting his role in the theft before the case reached court.

Two Polish accomplices of Hogstrom also received sentences of two and a half years, and two years four months for their roles in the crime, according to the Polish news agency PAP.

The theft of the sign above the entrance to the death camp caused outrage around the world. Some one million people, most of them Jews, were murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp between 1940-1945.

Author: Sarah Harman (dpa, AFP)
Editor: Andreas Illmer


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