Auschwitz Memorial Funding

Former Polish foreign minister Władysław Bartoszewski revealed the German government is paying $80 billion towards the upkeep of the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz memorial in Poland.

America and other EU countries will offer an equal amount. The initiative was pushed by Bartoszewski.

More than 150 buildings need to be preserved as well as personal belongings of the murdered inmates. Between 1940 and 1945, more than a million Jews, Gypsies and Poles were exterminated in Auschwitz and the neighbouring camp at Birkenau by Nazi guards.

"With this contribution, Germany recognizes its historic responsibility to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and pass it on to future generations," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle.