The Nazis' infamous iron sign declaring "Arbeit Macht Frei" — German for "Work Sets You Free" — was stolen Friday from the entrance of the former Auschwitz death camp, the Associated Press reports.

The 16-foot-long, 90-lb. iron sign at the Holocaust memorial site in southern Poland was unscrewed on one side and torn off on the other, police spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo said.

The theft from the entrance to the camp -- where more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, died during World War II -- brought immediate condemnation worldwide.

"The theft of such a symbolic object is an attack on the memory of the Holocaust, and an escalation from those elements that would like to return us to darker days," Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev said in a statement from Jerusalem.

"I call on all enlightened forces in the world who fight against anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia and the hatred of the other, to join together to combat these trends."

AP photo