Polish police detained five men yesterday for stealing the metal sign that hung over the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, and said they were common thieves, not neo-Nazis. Last Friday's theft triggered widespread outrage, especially from Israel and Jewish groups, amid fears of a political motive. The sign, which carries the German motto Arbeit macht frei ("Work makes you free"), is a powerful symbol of the Holocaust committed by the Nazis against the Jews. The police said it had been cut into three pieces.

"None of the five suspects is a member of a neo-Nazi group," Andrzej Rokita, district police chief in the city of Krakow, told a news conference.

"Their motive was undoubtedly theft. We'll be able to say later whether the crime was ordered or they acted on their own initiative."

Police said the suspects, aged between 20 and 39, had previous convictions for various crimes including robbery and physical assault. One of them ran his own construction firm.

Authorities had made the recovery of the sign a national priority and the museum that runs Auschwitz offered a reward worth nearly $40,000. Police said they had received more than 100 calls offering information.

Some 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, perished in the Nazi death camp during World War II. Arriving prisoners used to enter via a small iron gate topped by the sign.

More than 200 hectares of the former death camp became a museum after the war ended.