Stop using Nazi death camp as a backdrop for cute photos, Auschwitz Memorial asks

There’s a place and time for cute Instagram-style photos of people balancing on a railroad track, but outside an infamous Nazi death camp isn’t one of them, the Auschwitz Memorial says.

In a March 20 Twitter post, the memorial asks visitors to refrain from using the camp, once a vital cog in the Holocaust, as a backdrop for carefree online photos.

“When you come to @AuschwitzMuseum remember you are at the site where over 1 million people were killed. Respect their memory,” the post reads. “There are better places to learn how to walk on a balance beam than the site which symbolizes deportation of hundreds of thousands to their deaths.”

The post includes four photos of people balancing on the tracks that once carried people to their deaths outside the camp.

The memorial later clarified in response to a comment that it was not banning photography entirely at the camp, but requesting some decorum and respect from visitors.

“You do not have to be solemn and stern all the time,” read a follow-up comment by the memorial. “Yet, there are some things which are simply disrespectful.”

The Nazis murdered 1.1 million Jews at the Auschwitz complex of camps in occupied Poland, along with hundreds of thousands of Poles and others.

The original Auschwitz Memorial post asking visitors to be more respectful had received 95,000 likes and sparked 1,300 comments and 44,000 retweets by Tuesday morning.

Many commenters expressed shock at the carefree photos.

“What have we become? Why even bother going to Auschwitz if you’re going to behave like you’re in an amusement park?” read one response.

“We visited on Monday, but couldn’t believe how many individuals took it as an attraction rather than a memorial,” read another comment. “This is a site of mass extermination of many people. It’s a completely harrowing experience.”

“There are simply no words for this kind of disrespect,” wrote another commenter.

A few, however, suggested the memorial and critics were being too sensitive.

“Not everyone is at the same place in their journey towards maturity and understanding,” read one response. “Also, different people deal with uncomfortable emotions in different ways-such as laughing at a funeral. Instead of criticizing-educate.”

“I have visited Auschwitz with my children,” wrote another commenter. “My mother was a Holocaust survivor. Many of her family perished. I think this tweet is unworthy and controlling. Sometimes you just need to de-stress a bit. Stop trying to manage everyone into ‘your version’ of respect.”

This story was originally published March 26, 2019 at 7:48 AM with the headline "Stop using Nazi death camp as a backdrop for cute photos, Auschwitz Memorial asks."