Germany to pay half the cost of restoring Auschwitz memorial

Germany committed itself Wednesday to paying half the cost of restoring the leaky buildings and crumbling personal possessions of the former Nazi death camp Auschwitz.

The premiers of Germany's 16 federal states and Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed in Berlin to contribute 60 million euros, saying Auschwitz must be maintained as a monument to condemn the Holocaust and Nazi reign of terror.

Over 1 million people, the large majority of whom were Jews, were murdered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, spread over three sites. Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II, was the site of gas chambers.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau International Memorial Foundation has appealed for 120 million euros to patch up 150 buildings and the ruins of 300 others. The money is also need to preserve victims' stored personal effects, including 80,000 shoes and 3,800 suitcases.

The camp was established by Germans in 1940 in the suburbs of Oswiecim, a city in occupied Poland that the Nazi occupiers called Auschwitz. The camp was built of low-grade materials and the Nazis later razed the gas chambers to cover up evidence of the Holocaust.

A former Polish foreign minister, the historian Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, led plans to set up the international foundation so that the remains will stay visible to future generations.

Juergen Ruettgers, premier of the state of North Rhine Westphalia and on the board of the foundation, has pledged to collect the funds. "One of the most important things we can do is to keep up the memory of this rupture of civilization and of culture," he said.