German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who first visited the former Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp last week, promised to allocate 60 million euros from this federal and regional budget to this unique memorial complex. This contribution will help the museum management to collect the necessary 120 million euros for renovation.

This was reported by the Jewish News Agency JTA.

Recall that last Friday the Chancellor first visited the state museum of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. This was the first visit of the German Chancellor to the memorial complex on the site of the former Nazi camp since 1995..

Merkel's visit to Auschwitz took place on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Merkel accepted an invitation from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, founded ten years ago by former Polish Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a former prisoner of the world's largest death camp, where 1.1 million people were killed.

Most of the deceased prisoners of this camp are Jews, but there were other nationalities: 80. 000 - Poles, 25. 000 - gypsies and 20. 000 - military personnel of the Soviet army.

The camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers on January 27, 1945, and it is on this day that the world honors the memory of Holocaust victims - by decision of the UN.

Merkel became the third head of government in post-war Germany to visit Auschwitz. Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl previously did this..

According to newsru. co. il, Angela Merkel, who became German Chancellor in 2005, visited the death camps of Dachau and Buchenwald, as well as the Israeli memorial complex Yad Vashem.