A Bavarian blacksmith is working on a replica of the wrought-iron gate bearing the Nazis’ cynical slogan “Arbeit macht frei,” or “Work sets you free,” that was stolen from the former Dachau concentration camp in November.

Working off photos of the original gate, Michael Poitner was forging the letters over a fire in his blacksmith shop near Dachau on Thursday, bending them into shape and laying them into the gate.

The gate will be set into a larger iron gate shortly before the 70th anniversary of the liberation by U.S. forces on April 29, 1945.

Dachau, near Munich, was the first concentration camp set up by the Nazis in 1933. More than 40,000 prisoners died there. The camp is now a memorial site.

(AP)