OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed a sense of “deep shame” during his first visit on Friday at the sacred site of the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the regime of Adolf Hitler killed more than million people.

Merkel noted that her visit comes amid rising anti-Semitism and historical revisionism, and promised that Germany will not tolerate anti-Semitism. According to her, Germany remains committed to the memory of the crimes that she committed against Jews, poles, Roma and Sinti, homosexuals and others.

Speaking at the meeting, in the course of which were former Auschwitz prisoners, she said that she feels “deep shame before the face of the barbaric crimes committed here by Germans.”

“Nothing can bring back the people who were murdered here. Nothing can reverse the unprecedented crimes committed here. These crimes are, and will remain part of German history, and this history need to say again and again,” she said.

Today she called this responsibility a key element of German national identity.

Merkel also brought a donation of 60 million euros (66.6 million USD). The money will go into a Fund to preserve the physical remnants of the site of the barracks, guard towers, and personal items like shoes and suitcases of the victims.

Together, these objects are evidence of the German atrocities and one of the most recognizable symbols of mankind’s capacity for evil. But they also deteriorate under the stress of time and mass tourism, which causes long-term conservation efforts.

Accompanied by the Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Merkel Moravcova start with, saw a crematorium and walked under the gate with the infamous words “Arbeyt Macht Frei”. It was a cynical phrase that meant “work will set you free” when the truth was that the prisoners were either executed immediately, painful scientific experimentation, or forced labor.

Merkel and Moravicki went near the place of execution, where they bowed their heads before the two garlands with flowers of their people. Stay lasting a few hours also included a visit to the laboratory of conservation, where the old leather shoes were laid out on the table, ut – the laying of candles at Birkenau, part of a huge complex, where Jews were subjected to mass murder in gas chambers.

A donation to the Auschwitz Foundation is in addition to 60 million euros, which Germany sacrificed when the Fund was launched ten years ago, according to the state Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau.

This brings the German total donation of 120 million euros, making Germany by far the most generous of the 38 countries that have contributed. As in the previous donation, half comes from the Federal government and half from the German States, the recognition of responsibility of the German nation.

Since she became Chancellor in 2005, Merkel honored the memory of the other Nazi concentration camps, and five times was in the Museum and the Holocaust memorial “Yad VA-Shem”.

However, Poland’s foreign Ministry called the visit “historic”, that is a clear recognition of the unique status of Auschwitz in the world’s collective memory. The Ministry also noted that it was only the third visit of the acting head of the German government.

The forces of Nazi Germany killed about 1.1 million people in the complex Auschwitz-Birkenau during the occupation of Poland during world war II. Most of the victims were Jews who were transported from all over Europe to be killed in the gas chambers. But there were also killed tens of thousands of other people, including poles, Soviet POWs and Gypsies, or Roma. The camp was liberated by the Soviet army on 27 January 1945.

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Gera reported from Warsaw.