The task of the Foundation will be to amass a sum of €120 million for the Perpetual Fund.
The annual interest of €4-5 million will make it possible to plan and systematically carry out essential conservation work. Thus, for the first time in its history, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial has a real chance of creating an ongoing, long-term conservation program that will make it possible to safeguard the remains of the camp for future generations.

The core of the Perpetual Fund should be in place by the end of 2010, so that the first of the long-term preservation projects can begin a year later. This means that the preservation of the authenticity of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial could be under threat if the necessary funds are not raised by that time.

The Memorial is almost 200 hectares of grounds, 155 buildings, and 300 ruins, including the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria, as well as over 100 thousand personal items that belonged to the people who were killed, other items, archival documents, and works of art by prisoners. For these ruins and buildings, the clock is running faster and faster. If we do not find a way today to underwrite a comprehensive plan for conservation on a permanent basis, we will never manage to catch up with the natural erosion and deterioration of many buildings and other objects. Until now, the entire burden of maintaining this place has fallen on Poland, which will continue to finance the ongoing operation of the Museum.

News:

• United States Contributes $15 Million to Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation (July 2010)
• Additional German Support for the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation (June 2010)
• The First Year of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation (June 2010)
• €6 million for the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation from Austria (February 2010)
• €60 Million for Preserving Auschwitz (December 2009)
• Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation Council convened for the first time (June 2009)
• We will save from forgetting, what they wanted to destroy (April 2009)
• The Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation established (January 2009)

Museum director Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński speaking about the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation and its importance for preserving the Auschwitz Memorial:

Today, the situation at the Auschwitz site is still under control. The Polish government has taken continuous responsibility for this place since World War II, but the clock is running increasingly quickly for these ruins and buildings. If we do not find a way of permanently financing an overall conservation plan today, many of these objects will face accelerated natural erosion and deterioration, until the point at which the situation becomes irreversible. This is why the Polish premier has sent letters addressed to a wide range of recipients, including the European countries, urging them to support the plans for setting up a Perpetual Fund to maintain the authenticity of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

So far, Poland has carried almost the entire burden of preserving this site. Poland will, furthermore, continue to maintain the Museum. The appeal for funding applies exclusively to the cost of conserving the original camp objects—the scores of blocks, barracks, guard towers, ruins, crematoria, and fences, as well as the objects safeguarded in the collections. Support from abroad has not exceeded 3-5% in recent years, the majority donated by the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation. These contributions have made it possible to open the up-to-date conservation workshop and laboratories. Today, we are closer to preserving the authenticity of this place than ever before. The only thing we need now is money.

This place is necessary to all of us. This is where we can most fully understand the tragedy of a Europe plunged into war and mutual hatred. Here, too, the younger generation can best understand how much we must preserve in order for the future to be different. Auschwitz was both a concentration camp and a killing center. It is the only place of its kind entered on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Over the last seven years, the number of visitors has tripled. This is a sign of great hope. I am personally convinced that this is a place of fundamental significance to our entire European civilization—a place where we can grapple most fully with questions of overriding importance about man, society, and the poisoned fruits of anti-Semitism, race hatred, and contempt for others.

It is also the place where we can most clearly see the sense of many postwar phenomena and movements to create a world free of such tragedies. I am thinking of the creation of the UN and the International Court of Justice, the concept of crimes against humanity, and finally the whole effort to build a communitarian Europe as a way of averting the calamities of war and the spread of ideologies of hatred.  

Auschwitz remains the most comprehensible explanation of the postwar struggle for human rights. I believe that, today, every mature democracy depends on educating its young people in such a way that they understand the profound correctness of international and state efforts to build a different world. It might not always be a success, and it might not be completely ideal, but it will be different.  

That is why I think that, at the moment when the last eyewitnesses to those tragic times are passing away, the preservation of Auschwitz is becoming a genuinely shared responsibility.