The European Union will give 5.9 million United States Dollars to help preserve Auschwitz, the former Nazi death camp which, more than six decades after World War II, is in a state of serious disrepair.

Rafal Pioro, who heads Auschwitz's conservation department, said the EU recently promised the money to fund badly needed repairs to the camp's structures.

Museum officials and others are struggling to preserve Auschwitz - a vast complex of barbed wire, gas chambers, barracks and watchtowers, that stands as historical evidence and as a symbol of Nazi evil. The site gets about 1 million visitors per year.

"[The grant] is significant and will let us get started on our complex work on the camp," Pioro said Thursday.

But he estimated the total preservation project will cost about 200 million zlotys ($64 million). Work is scheduled to begin this August.

More than 1 million people, mostly Jews, died in the gas chambers or through forced labor, disease or starvation at the camp, which the Nazis built after occupying Poland.

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