The government of the Swiss Confederation has announced an increase of their support to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation up  to 1 million euro. The decision was announced on May 3 by the Swiss Ambassador to Poland, Lukas Beglinger. Switzerland was one of the first countries which responded to the appeal of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and declared in 2010 their donation of 100 thousand CHF to the Perpetual Fund of the Foundation.

The possibility of increasing the Swiss support was in the agenda of a recent visit of Polish President Bronisław Komorowski to Switzerland. This decision was made by the Swiss authorities in order to express their international solidarity and respect for the victims of the Nazism. To erase the very possibility that the truth would be known and people would remember, the Nazis destroyed some of their extermination camps. That is why preservation of the Auschwitz Memorial has such a unique meaning.  Switzerland also expressed its hope that preservation efforts will contribute to the further development of the educational trips of young people from Switzerland to Auschwitz. These trips enable young people to learn about the atrocities committed in the name of a racist and anti-Semitic ideology.

”Switzerland, noticing the real success of the work of the Foundation, after its initial decision, decided not to stay behind and join the main donor countries . I hope that this positive example will also encourage other countries to revise their contribution to this unprecedented international project of saving the authenticity of the Auschwitz Memorial,” said Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, the President of the Foundation and the director of the Auschwitz Memorial.