Auschwitz visitors told to stop posing for disrespectful photos at Nazi death camp

Officials at site remind public more than one million people were killed there

(AFP/Getty Images)

Visitors to Auschwitz, the former Nazi death camp, have been asked to stop posing for photos while balancing on its infamous railway tracks.

Officials at Auschwitz Memorial, which preserves the site where more than 1.1 million Jews were killed, said visitors must “respect” the memory of the dead.

In a tweet, which included pictures of four people stood on the lines, it said: “There are better places to learn how to walk on a balance beam than the site which symbolises deportation of hundreds of thousands to their deaths.”

In a follow up, it added a section from the site’s regulations: “Visitors to the grounds of the museum should behave with due solemnity and respect."

Auschwitz, in southern Poland, was the largest of the Nazis' concentration of camps. As well as Jews, hundreds of thousands of Soviet prisoners, Roma, Jehovah's Witnesses and gay men also died there.

By Thursday – 24 hours after the original post was made – it had been retweeted 8,000 times and liked by 20,000 people.

One respondent, Morgan Blythe, wrote: “I don’t understand why people use Auschwitz as a photo op or how they take cheerful selfies in front of a site that saw the murder of thousands of innocent people. I just can’t wrap my head around that one.”

Another, Stephanie Kowalski, added: “Thank you for calling this out. The lack of respect is so sad.”

But not everyone agreed with the museum’s actions. Many said that by posting the photos, it was, in effect, publicly shaming the people pictured.

David Berger wrote: “I have visited Auschwitz with my children. 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.”

Another agreed: “Let people smile,” wrote Ostez Vostre Lion. “Remembrance does not mean being solemn and stern all the time.”

It is not the first time photographs taken at the site have caused controversy.

American teenager Breanna Mitchell received death threats in 2014 after a picture of her grinning at the former camp went viral.