wrote the or "The Dachau Song". They had spent weeks marching in and out of the camp's gate to daily forced labour, and considered the motto over the gate an insult. The song repeats the phrase cynically as a "lesson" taught by Dachau. An example of ridiculing the falsity of the slogan was a popular saying used among Auschwitz prisoners: It can also be seen at the Gross-Rosen, and Theresienstadt camps, as well as at Fort Breendonk in Belgium. At the Monowitz camp (also known as Auschwitz III), the slogan was reportedly placed over the entrance gates. However, Primo Levi describes seeing the words illuminated over a doorway (as distinct from a gate). The slogan appeared at the Flossenbürg camp on the left gate post at the camp entry. The original gate posts survive in another part of the camp, but the sign no longer exists. The signs are prominently displayed, and were seen by all prisoners and staff— all of whom knew, suspected, or quickly learned that prisoners confined there would likely only be freed by death. The signs' psychological impact was tremendous. Thefts of signs The sign over the Auschwitz I gate was stolen in December 2009 and later recovered by authorities in three pieces. Anders Högström, a Swedish neo-Nazi, and two Polish neo-Nazi men were jailed as a result. The original sign is now in storage at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and a replica was put over the gate in its place. On 2 November 2014, the sign over the Dachau gate was stolen. It was found on 28 November 2016 under a tarpaulin at a parking lot in Ytre Arna, a settlement north of Bergen, Norway's second-largest city. See also Extermination through labour (idiomatically, "everyone gets what he deserves"), a motto used at the Buchenwald concentration camp. References External links German words and phrases Signage Terminology of Nazi concentration camps Unfree labor during World War II Holocaust terminology Euphemisms Quotations from literature 1870s neologisms