Around 90 million euros have been transferred to the accounts of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation which is to oversee conservation and maintenance work at the site of the former Nazi German concentration camp in southern Poland The director of the Auschwitz Museum, Piotr M.A. CywiDski, has said that given that an additional 22 million euros have been declared, the Foundation hopes to create a Perpetuity Fund of 120 million euros to ensure the consolidation, restoration and long-term maintenance of the camp site by the end of 2016.
The governments of thirty-five countries have so far contributed to the fund.
The most sizeable contribution, of 60 million euros, comes from Germany. The United States has contributed 15 million US dollars, Poland – 10 million euros. The contributors also include the President of the World Jewish Congress Ronald S. Lauder and Steven Spielberg’s The Righteous Persons Foundation.
PaweB Sawicki of the Auschwitz Museum Press Office has told the Polish Press Agency that the conservation work commenced in the middle of 2012 and currently focuses on the brick barracks in the oldest section of Auschwitz II-Birkenau. One of the warehouses in which textiles are stored is also being restored.
The site of the Auschwitz camps extends over an area of almost 200 hectares and comprises 155 buildings, most which are badly in need of repair. The conservation projects are also to cover the camp’s archives, documents and artefacts in the museum collection.
Over 1.1 million people, mostly European Jews, perished in Auschwitz. Last year the Auschwitz Museum was visited by 1.5 million people.
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