Germany to pay over £50 million to preserve World War II death camp

Germany is to pay over £50 million to help preserve the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland, where 1.1 million Jews were exterminated during the Second World War.

According to the Telegraph, the money will help preserve the rotting watchtowers, barracks and other buildings that testify to the greatest crime in history.

"Germany acknowledges its historic responsibility to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and to pass it on to future generations," the newspaper quoted Germany foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, as saying in a statement.

"Auschwitz-Birkenau is synonymous with the crimes of the Nazis. Today’s memorial recalls these crimes," he added.

The death camp was designated by Heinrich Himmler, then German interior minister, as the place of the "final solution of the Jewish question in Europe".

From 1942 to 1944, transport trains delivered Jews from all over Nazi-occupied Europe, who died in the camp's gas chambers or through forced labour, disease or starvation.

The camp was liberated by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945, a day commemorated around the world as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.