Spain contributes to Auschwitz museum maintenance

It is the 36th country to have made the contribution to a Perpetuity Fund of EUR 120 million to ensure the consolidation, restoration and long-term maintenance of the camp site.

Of the EUR 113 million euros declared, 90 million have already been transferred to the Fund’s bank account.

The most sizeable contribution, of 60 million euros, comes from Germany. The United States has contributed USD 15 million, Poland – EUR 10 million.

The contributors also include the President of the World Jewish Congress Ronald S. Lauder and Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Righteous Persons Foundation’.

Paweł 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 two brick barracks in the the so-called Blb section of Auschwitz II-Birkenau, which were erected in 1941.

All in all, the section contains 15 brick barracks, 12 wooden barracks, a kitchen, a bathroom, toilets and a warehouse in which prisoners’ belongings were stored.

The site of the Auschwitz camp extends over an area of almost 200 hectares and comprises 155 buildings.

Over 1.1 million people perished at Auschwitz, mostly European Jews, as well as non-Jewish Poles, Roma and Sinti, Soviet POWs and people of many other nationalities.(mk/nh/rk)