Israel PM expresses 'shock' at stolen Auschwitz sign

Looking at old photographs, Eli Rubenstein can spot the ways in which the historic Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp has fallen victim to the passage of time. Mr. Rubenstein, who leads educational tours of the site every year, has watched over 25 years as more and more derelict structures have been made unavailable to the public for safety reasons.

Israel announced Sunday that it was constructing a border fence along the length of its armistice line with Syria in the Golan Heights and was co-ordinating its intelligence with the United States in light of the deteriorating security situation in Syria. In remarks at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Syrian army had moved away from the frontier and that jihadist forces had moved in. “Therefore, we will defend this border against both infiltration and terrorism,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

The head of Jerusalem's Holocaust memorial condemned on Friday as a "declaration of war" the theft of the "Arbeit macht frei" sign from the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Poland."This act constitutes a true declaration of war. We don't know the identity of the perpetrators but I assume they are neo-Nazis," Avner Shalev said in a statement."These people want to bring Europe back 70 years to the dark years of death and destruction," he added.

BERLIN — The case of an 87-year-old Philadelphia man accused by Germany of serving as an SS guard at Auschwitz has largely centred on whether he was stationed at the part of the death camp used as a killing machine for Jews. Johann “Hans” Breyer — while admitting he was an Auschwitz guard — insists he was never there. World-War II-era documents obtained by The Associated Press indicate otherwise.

A Swedish court on Thursday allowed the extradition to Poland of a former neo-Nazi leader Anders Hoegstroem to face trial for the theft of a sign from the one-time Auschwitz death camp, a prosecutor said.Hoegstroem, 34, was arrested on February 11 over the theft of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign which disappeared on December 18 from over the gate of the notorious World War II camp set up in occupied Poland by Nazi Germany.Hoegstroem has three weeks to appeal, and if unsuccessful "the authorities have to come and get him and they have 10 days to do so," she added.

Polish police said early Monday they have recovered the Nazi German "Arbeit macht frei" sign stolen from the site of the Auschwitz death camp in southern Poland and arrested the alleged thieves."We have arrested five men aged from 20 to 39 in the north of Poland. The recovered sign has been cut up into three pieces," Dariusz Nowak, spokesman for the police in southern Krakow, told AFP.The suspects have no links to neo-Nazi groups, Polish police said on Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travels on Monday to Poland for a highly emotional visit to the Auschwitz death camp after he warned of a sharp rise in anti-Semitism across the world.A ceremony on Wednesday will mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi camp where some 1.1 Jews perished between June 1940 and January 1945.Netanyahu will be accompanied by a delegation of Israeli MPs and Holocaust survivors.

Poland said Thursday it had formally asked Sweden for help in its probe of the theft of the infamous Nazi German "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign from the former Auschwitz death camp."We sent the Swedish justice ministry a request for judicial assistance by mail and fax," prosecutor's office spokeswoman Boguslawa Marcinkowska told AFP.She declined to elaborate.Last week, Polish investigators said the mastermind of the theft -- which sent shockwaves around the world -- lived abroad.