The Auschwitz Memorial criticized World Wrestling Entertainment on Wednesday for using an image of a Holocaust concentration camp as part of a promotional video for its biggest wrestling event of the year.
The image was used in a promotional clip prior to Saturday’s father-son match between wrestlers Rey Mysterio and Dominic Mysterio on the first day of WrestleMania 39 at Sophie Stadium in Inglewood, California.
“It’s hard to call the Auschwitz photo used to promote the WWE match an ‘editing mistake,'” the Auschwitz Memorial said in a tweet Wednesday, alongside a screenshot of the photo used. “To exploit a place that has come to symbolize a great human tragedy is shameless and insults the memory of all the victims of Auschwitz.”
The fact that Auschwitz images were used to promote WWE matches is hardly an “editing mistake”. Exploiting a site that has become a symbol of a great human tragedy is shameless and insults the memory of all the victims of Auschwitz. https://t.co/b4bbYgWPwj https://t.co/Xud4rbhEUS pic.twitter.com/tuJrzmK6mQ
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) April 5, 2023
In the story of the video, Dominic tries to convince his father to fight with him. In the video, Dominic says he had a “tough time” in prison, as images of barbed wire and prisons flash across the screen – including one that appears to be Auschwitz, where more than a million people were tortured and killed during World War 2.
WWE has not commented on the controversy, but the footage does not appear on the current YouTube version of Saturday’s WrestleMania kickoff show.
Built in Poland in 1940, Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi concentration camps in Germany, housing mainly Polish citizens and until 1945 people of the Jewish faith.
About 6 million European Jews were killed in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany and its allies as part of a systematic attempt to exterminate people of the Jewish faith. Millions more were killed by the Nazi regime. According to the Auschwitz Memorial, an estimated 1.1 million people were killed at Auschwitz.
Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images
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