Replica of Dachau's "Arbeit macht frei" sign
Replica of Dachau's "Arbeit macht frei" signReuters

An iron gate with the slogan “Arbeit macht frei” (“work will set you free”) from the former Nazi concentration camp in Dachau has been found in Norway two years after it was stolen, AFP reported Friday.

“Due to an anonymous tipoff, police in Norway’s Bergen have secured an iron gate with the well-known text,” Bavaria state police said on Friday.

“From the picture transmitted, police believe it is highly likely that this is the iron gate that was stolen from Dachau,” they added.

The theft of the 100kg (220lb) gate was reported on November 2, 2014, sparking uproar, with German chancellor Angela Merkel calling it “appalling”.

The Dachau camp, located just a few miles from Munich, opened in 1933 and during the Second World War became a death camp where more than 41,000 Jews were slaughtered before U.S. troops liberated it on April 29, 1945.

Another sign with the same inscription at Auschwitz was stolen in December of 2009. Polish police recovered the sign several days after the theft, broken in three pieces. It was restored two years later.

The mastermind of that theft, the Swedish neo-Nazi Anders Högström, was caught and jailed for two-and-a-half years.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)