In a bid for visitors to the Auschwitz concentration camp museum to cool down from the “extreme heat” Poland was experiencing in August, management thought it was a good idea to install misters at the museum’s entrance.
Though, with the parallels to the Nazi-era gas chambers where an estimated one million Jews perished at the exact same location palpable, perhaps they should have anticipated the controversy that would likely ensue, and vetoed the idea.
"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," one Meir Bulka told the Jerusalem Post after arriving at the museum. "All the Israelis felt this was very distasteful," he continued. "Someone called it a 'Holocaust gimmick.'"
Management at the Auschwitz museum, however, defended their decision via a post shared to the Auschwitz Memorial Facebook page. "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," the page said.
Temperatures in Poland were at one point over 40 degrees Celsius over the weekend.
Despite objections from both Jewish and non-Jewish visitors, officials at Auschwitz maintained that the misters were necessary after several tourists nearly fainted from the heat while waiting in line. "It is really hard for us to comment on some suggested historical references since the mist sprinkles do not look like showers and the fake showers installed by Germans inside some of the gas chambers were not used to deliver gas into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," the Facebook page said.
Speaking to TIME, museum spokesperson Pawel Sawicki elaborated, saying, “The safety and health of visitors are our priority during the period of extreme heat. Cooling air have been really helpful to visitors in this difficult situation.”
