LUDWIGSHAFEN, Germany (AP) - Neo-Nazi graffiti was found scrawled on the entrance to a Turkish cultural center at a building where nine people - including five children - were killed in a fire over the weekend, police said Wednesday.
The German word for hate - ``Hass'' - was written twice on the wall, with the final two letters in the Nazi ``SS'' rune script, police spokesman Michael Lindner said.
He said it was not yet known when the graffiti had appeared, but that it must have been scrawled before the fire because the building had been secured since the blaze on Sunday.
Authorities have already said that two small fires were started in the building in 2006 but that they were quickly put out by residents, and it is not yet clear whether they were related to the fire.
Meanwhile, police were working with two young witnesses to develop a sketch of a man they said set a fire in a building.
The girls, aged 8 and 9, whose names were not released, have said they saw a man setting fire to something with his lighter and then throwing it next to a baby carriage in the hallway of the building in Ludwigshafen, in southwestern Germany.
It is hoped they will be able to recall enough to produce a portrait that could be distributed later in the day, police spokesman Volker Klein said.
``Every clue is being taken seriously,'' he said. However, an initial search with sniffer dogs turned up no trace of anything that might have fed the fire.
The fire broke out on Sunday afternoon, quickly engulfing the four-story building in smoke and flames.
People jumped for their lives from the burning building; and in a dramatic scene, a 32-year-old man possibly saved his infant nephew, Onur, by throwing him to a policeman 23 feet below, who caught the child.
``To let him fall was the only chance,'' the uncle, Kamil Kaplan, told Bild newspaper. ``There was a policeman in front of the house, I made eye contact with him and knew that it would work. The official took his jacket off and held it like a safety net. I kissed Onur again. Then I let him drop.''
German police said the infant was unharmed and the parents, whom they did not identify, also survived the blaze.
Besides housing the cultural center, the building was inhabited by two Turkish families. In total, 24 people were registered as living at the residence but it was unclear how many were in the building at the time of the fire.
The Turkish ambassador visited the site on Tuesday and Turkish state minister Sait Yazicioglu followed on Wednesday.
``Our people should not have any concerns about the investigation,'' he told Turkish reporters after inspecting the site. ``The investigation will be concluded in a way that leaves no room for any doubt.''
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan - who is making a previously scheduled visit to Germany - has indicated he will also go to the fire scene.
Rescue workers finally secured the building, which is in danger of collapse, to allow investigators with the sniffer dogs to enter Wednesday and look for clues as to the cause of the blaze.
Late Tuesday, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble urged people not to jump to any conclusions as to the cause.
``It is terrible misfortune, it is really a catastrophe, but there is currently - so far as I know - absolutely no basis for any wide-ranging assumptions,'' Schaeuble said on Suedwestrundfunk radio.