Conservationists have welded together the "Arbeit macht frei" sign stolen from the gate of the former Nazi German Auschwitz death camp in December 2009, a museum official said today.

The sign, which formed an arch above the gate to the infamous World War II death camp in Oswiecim, southern Poland, before being stolen and cut up, was "a symbolic attack" on the memory of the Holocaust, Piotr Cywinski, head of the Auschwitz museum, said in a statement.

"It is an object of a great historic value, but also a very famous slogan of totalitarian propaganda and a warning against the madness of nationalism, racism and anti-semitism," he added.

The repaired sign which translates from the German as "Work Shall Set You Free," will now become part of an exposition at the Auschwitz museum, according to museum spokesman Pawel Sawicki.

A replica has been put in its place atop the gate at the Auschwitz camp's main entrance.

The metal sign spanning about five metres (yards) was stolen on December 18, 2009, and found three days later, cut up into three pieces.

The theft provoked angry reactions in Poland, Israel and among the former prisoners.

The five Polish thieves of the sign were immediately arrested and then sentenced to between 18 months and and 30 months in prison for "theft and damaging an item belonging to UNESCO's world heritage."

The mastermind of the theft, 34-year-old Swedish neo-Nazi Anders Hoegstroem, was extradited from Sweden to Poland where he was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison, before returning to Sweden to serve his sentence.

Nazi Germany killed about 1.1 million people at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1940-1945, the vast majority of whom were Jews.

The other victims were mostly non-Jewish Poles, Romas and Soviet prisoners of war.