Mist Sprinklers Spark Outrage at Auschwitz Museum In Poland

In a move that may go down as one of the great PR blunders, museum management at Auschwitz has installed misters to combat an intense heatwave hitting Poland. Some visitors, however, were reminded of the gas chambers used by the Nazis at the infamous concentration camp. This was viewed as an affront to survivors and victims of the Holocaust and those offended have expressed intense outrage.

The Nazis were notorious for making gas chambers look like shower rooms in concentration camps. In the case of Auschwitz, these shower rooms did not use shower heads to deliver gas to their victims, as pointed out by a museum spokesman. The gas came from a different source. Exhibits of these tragic crimes against humanity can be seen by visitors at places such as Auschwitz-Buchenwald, Terezin, and other concentration camps. In the case of Terezin, many fixtures had no running water connected at all. This can be seen in rows of sinks attached to walls to make visitors at the time believe that the people imprisoned in the camp were living under decent conditions.

Israeli tourists arrived at the museum on Sunday to find misting hoses hanging above the ticket line. The visitors were horrified at the sight, and some took to Twitter. “Because of the extreme heat wave we have experienced in August in Poland, mist sprinklers which cool the air were placed near the entrance to the Museum,” Pawel Sawicki, a museum spokesman told Time.

The museum denies any intentional offense against Holocaust survivors, victims or their families. “The mist sprinklers do not look like showers and the fake showers installed by Germans inside some of the gas chambers were not used to deliver gas into them,” Sawicki added.

Several have feinted from the heat at the museum since the wave began, and the safety of visitors is top priority for management. While having a strong understanding of what life and death could be like in a concentration camp (and rightly sympathetic), It may seem that the outrage is misplaced. Would a museum that stands as a memorial to the atrocities of anti-Semitism do such a thing?

“As a Jew who has lost so many relatives in the Holocaust, they looked like the showers that the Jews were forced to take before entering the gas chambers,” Meir Bulka, 48, told the Jerusalem Post. However, the misters are outdoors and the real gas chambers did not use shower heads to deliver their deadly toxins.

The Holocaust lasted until 1945 and victims included Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals among many others.