German Chancellor Angela Merkel will make her first visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial on Friday and will bring a 60 million euro donation to help conserve the site, the museum said on Thursday.

“Auschwitz is a museum but is also the biggest cemetery in the world … (memory) is the key to building the present and future,” museum director Piotr Cywinski told the Reuters news agency ahead of Merkel’s visit at the invitation of the Auschwitz foundation.

Merkel said the donation, half of which comes from Germany’s federal government and half from the regional governments, would ensure the memorial is preserved.

“I am very happy that we could agree that the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial will get additional money,” she said after meeting German state premiers, according to Reuters. “It is a good message that I take with me to Poland tomorrow.”

Read more at Arutz Sheva.