The guard towers of Auschwitz are splintering, the barracks are waterlogged: the concentration camp where over one million Jews were murdered is decaying so fast that conservationists have called on Britain to help to save it, The Times reports.
The theft last month of its distinctive, sinister sign, “Arbeit macht frei” has underlined the vulnerability of the nazi death camp, stretching over 50 acres of southern Poland. “Nobody could have imagined such a horrific act of …

A wealthy British Nazi ­sympathiser was behind the theft of the ­infamous sign above the Auschwitz death camp, the Sunday Mirror reported yesterday.
The shadowy figure was the intended buyer of the iconic 16ft-long metalwork – one of the Holocaust’s most potent symbols.
The sign, stolen two weeks ago, bears the German words “Arbeit macht Frei”. Now a Sunday ­Mirror investigation has ­revealed that the sign – recovered in three pieces by police – was destined for …

Poland will formally seek Sweden’s help in investigating the theft of the “Arbeit macht frei” sign from the Auschwitz memorial, confirming that Polish authorities suspect a Swedish link in the crime, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Boguslawa Marcinkowska, a spokeswoman for Krakow prosecutors, said her office would send a formal request for help to the Swedish Justice Ministry in Stockholm.
Polish media have been reporting that the theft was commissioned by a collector living in Sweden, but investigators …

The nazi gang that ordered the theft of the infamous “Arbeit macht frei” sign from the gates of Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland planned to sell it to fund violent attacks against the Swedish Prime Minister and Parliament, The Times reports.
A spokesman for the Swedish security police confirmed that the authorities were taking seriously a threat by a militant nazi group to disrupt national elections next year. “We are aware of the information about the …

A still unidentified resident of Sweden is suspected of being the middle man in the brazen theft of the infamous “Arbeit macht frei” sign from the Auschwitz concentration camp last Friday, Ha’aretz reports.
Artur Wrona, the chief prosecutor in Krakow, says evidence indicates the crime was commissioned by a person living outside Poland. Polish media reported suspicions focusing on someone in Sweden, but Wrona refused to confirm or deny the reports.
Three men who police say have …

Dozens of people have died across Europe as days of snow storms and sub-zero temperatures swept the continent, the BBC reports.
At least 42 people froze to death in Poland as temperatures fell to -20°C, while in southern Germany a figure of -33°C was recorded.
Fifty people were injured when a train hit a buffer in the Croatian city of Zagreb, while 36 were injured when a passenger train derailed in Paris.
Parts of the continent saw 20in …

Polish police recovered today the Nazi “Arbeit macht frei” sign that had been hung at the entrance to the site of the Auschwitz death camp; five men, ages 20 to 39, were arrested after the police found the 16-foot-long metal sign cut into three pieces in a house, Arutz 7 reports.
Auschwitz museum spokesman Pawel Sawicki said that the sign will be restored and put back in its place “as quickly as possible”.
“This symbol probably [is] …

Thieves stole the notorious metal sign hanging over the entrance of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz that reads “Arbeit macht frei”, Reuters reports.
“Around 5am today the museum administration informed us that the sign has been stolen. The whole area is under surveillance, there are many cameras there. We are now analysing the film. I hope we will find the trail,” a spokesman for the local police said.
Some 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, perished …

Nearly a dozen Polish prisons and detention centres have signed up their inmates to an unusual form of labour – rescuing overgrown, long-neglected Jewish cemeteries, Ha’aretz reports.
Poland was home to an estimated third of the world’s Jews before World War II but the vast majority perished in the Holocaust during nazi Germany’s occupation.
With few if any relatives left to tend family graves, Jewish cemeteries have fallen into a bad state of disrepair over the decades. …

Latvia and Finland are theoretically prepared to support Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves for the President of the European Union, Estonian media reports.
Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis said that Ilves is an honourable candidate for the unelected EU presidency.
Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said today that Finland is ready to support Ilves as the EU President.

Taxpayers are funding child benefit for more than 50,000 children of migrant workers – even though the youngsters still live in their home countries, the Daily Mail reports.
Treasury figures show that Poles make up the vast majority of the payments made under a loophole in EU legislation.
Benefits are paid to 37,941 children in the former Eastern Bloc country, who have one or both parents working in the UK. The cost is estimated at more than £24million …

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan says that Foreign Secretary David Miliband should apologise to the people of Poland and Latvia, after trying to brand the Latvian and Polish members of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) antisemites.
Hannan writes in his blog that in pursuit of his campaign to be the EU’s first foreign minister, Miliband seems quite happy to prejudice Britain’s bilateral relations with friendly countries.
“His increasingly unhinged allegations have been greeted with horror in …

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said today after meeting with the US Vice President Joe Biden that his country is ready to participate in the revamped plan for a US missile defence shield in Europe, the Washington Post reports.
US President Barack Obama removed a major irritant in relations with Russia last month by scrapping plans to place interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic – deployments Moscow treated as a threat. …

Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski signed the European Union’s reform treaty into law yesterday, leaving the Czech Republic as the only country still to ratify the document, The Times reports.
Kaczynski, a eurosceptical conservative, signed the Lisbon Treaty at a ceremony in the presidential palace attended by senior EU officials, including the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso.
Before signing, Kaczynski stressed that the EU remained a union of sovereign nation states and said it must …

Michal Kaminski, the leader of the new European Reform Group in the European Parliament, of which the Conservative Party is a member, explained in an interview to Iain Dale and Total Politics that he’s not a homophobe, as many in Britain try to picture him, and nor is he an antisemite – in fact he’s been to Israel and received top level treatment there.
Kaminski said that in Poland it’s very hard to survive for an …

The Czech Republic threw the future of the Lisbon treaty in doubt yesterday by demanding an amendment, even though the document has already been accepted by the rest of the EU, The Times reports.
The delay while the details are thrashed out — all member states must agree to changes — could allow David Cameron, the Conservative leader, to fulfil his promise of a British referendum.
Vaclav Klaus, the notoriously unpredictable Czech President, is seeking unspecified guarantees …