Majdanek, Poland:
A fire swept through a barracks at the former Nazi death camp of Majdanek in Poland, destroying more than half the building and possibly 10,000 shoes of Holocaust victims, officials said on Tuesday.
The Majdanek museum said the fire in the barracks housing a camp kitchen was discovered shortly before midnight on Monday by a guard making his rounds.
Half of the barracks were destroyed in the fire, covering an area of around 300 square metres (around 3229 square feet).
The cause of the fire at the camp is not yet known and authorities are investigating.
However, one of the firefighters said that a probable cause of the fire was an electrical short circuit.
The museum said there were 10,000 shoes belonging to former prisoners in the barracks, but that it was too soon to say how extensive the damage was.
"It was a very sad night and a very sad day. We are dispirited," said the Director of the Museum, Tomasz Kranz.
Majdanek is situated on the outskirts of Lublin in eastern Poland.
An estimated 80,000 people, including some 60,000 Jews, were killed at the SS-run Majdanek camp in occupied Poland between October 1941 and its liberation by Soviet troops in July 1944.
Many former death camps across an area once occupied by Nazi Germany are falling into a state of disrepair decades after the end of World War II.
There have been recent cases of vandalism at some of them.
The most brazen of those was the theft of the sign over the entrance gate at Auschwitz bearing the infamous slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" - or "Work Will Set You Free."
The thieves cut the sign in three pieces, but police quickly recovered it and arrested six suspects.
A replica has since been put up in place of the original, which is being restored.