Auschwitz is falling into ruins and needs international funding to be kept open, the Polish authorities responsible for maintaining the Nazi death camp said yesterday.

Spokesman Jaroslaw Mensfelt said: 'Without outside help, Poland could have trouble retaining Auschwitz as a memorial site.'

An appeal has gone out, particularly to the EU, to 'share the burden' in keeping the site of the Birkenau extermination centre --which is separate from the rest of the complex - open as a place of homage and remembrance.

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Emaciated children clad in striped pyjamas line the barbed-wire fence at Auschwitz in this file photo

Up to 1.5million Jews were murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, near Krakow, before it was liberated by the Russians in January 1945.

Piotr Cywinski, the director of the memorial, £50million was needed for repairs, while another two is earned from the sales of books, fees for tours and parking.

Cywinski said that the international community, particularly the EU, should “share the burden” of keeping up the memorial.

Germany gave £5 million in the 1990s to upgrade some barracks and install heating in some rooms. 

But the passage of time has taken its toll on what was the prime killing centre for the Nazis in WW2.

Between 1.2 and 1.5 European, Balkan and Russian Jews were murdered in the gas chambers of the Birkenau complex, killed by a gas called Zyklon B.

After the war, a monument and museum was built on the site of the camps.

Interest in the monuments has grown in recent years with a record 1.2 million people visiting the museum last year.

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An aerial view of the main camp at Auschwitz. Authorities say the camp is falling into ruin

Unlike other extermination centres, Auschwitz, situated near Krakow, was also a slave labour centre with inmates not “selected” for death put to work in factories producing goods for the German war effort.

When the Russians liberated it in January 1945 they discovered mountains of valuables, human hair, gold teeth, spectacles and thousands and thousands of children's dolls – all taken from those who were murdered there.

Since the fall of Communism it has become a special place of pilgrimage for people from all lands, but particularly Jews from Israel.