Krakow (TAN): An American tourist faces up to 10 years in jail for attempting to steal a portion of the railway tracks from the infamous Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland.
The 37-year-old, who has admitted to the action, has been released pending legal proceedings, Deutsche Welle reported. He has been charged with attempt to steal and item of cultural importance.
A report quoting an Auschwitz Museum spokesman said visitors raised an alarm when they noticed the man trying to remove the part from the tracks.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest Nazi death camp during the Second World War. Around a million Jews were killed here.
The museum asks visitors to be respectful of the history with a “Visitors to the grounds of the museum should behave with due solemnity and respect” notification.
The authorities at Auschwitz, which has seen a series of thefts in recent months, have asked visitors not to pose for photographs while balancing on the railway tracks. These tracks were used by trains bringing in people to the death camp.
In 2009, a 16-feet board with “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Will Set You Free) written on it, was stolen from the same museum. It was later found broken in pieces. The perpetrator was later caught and sentenced to jail for two years.
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