Auschwitz Mist Showers Anger Jewish Visitors

The decision of the Auschwitz Museum in Poland to install misting showers at the former concentration camp grounds has received flak from visitors, who drew comparisons between the showers and the gas chambers utilized by the Nazis to kill innumerable Jews during the height of the Holocaust, reports The Times of Israel.

Meir Bulka, a 48-year-old Jewish visitor, said that he felt that the museum's decision to install the misting showers was done in poor taste.

"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. All the Israelis felt this was very distasteful," he said.

Colette Avital, chairwoman of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, believes that the museum should have acted in a more sensitive manner, according to The New York Daily News.

"We would expect people who deal with of the Holocaust, especially in a place like Auschwitz, to think before they act and to be more sensitive," she said.

The museum administration however, stated that the installed misting showers were not in any way modeled after the gas chambers used by the Nazis during World War II. The museum said that the showers were installed for one reason, and that is to prevent further cases of visitors fainting in the museum due to the extreme heat, which has soared to 37°C (98.6º F) lately.

Interested about people involved in the most infamous concentration camp in history? Click here for an interesting HNGN story.

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Auschwitz, Poland, Nazis, Jews, Holocaust, Jewish, Jew, Israeli, World War II