WWE issued an apology after using footage of the Auschwitz death camp in a fight promo.
The picture was used in a five-minute promo of a WrestleMania 39 contest between stars Dominik and Rey Mysterio, NPR reported. The photo appeared on the screen during Dominik’s comments about being a hardened criminal. WWE described it as an “editing mistake” in a statement and said it was quickly removed.
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“We had no knowledge of what was depicted. As soon as we learned, it was removed immediately. We apologize for this error,” the WWE said in a statement obtained by the Associated Press.
The image was shown on screen as Dominik was talking about his time served in jail. “You think this is a game to me? I served hard time. And I survived,” he said.
A Twitter user posted a picture of the mix-up. It appears that the WWE editors mistook the death camp for a standard prison. The image showed an interior shot of the camp with barbed wire, a guard tower, and brick buildings rather than the more noticeable train station or “Arbeit Macht Frei” gate.
However, the mistake was decried by the Auschwitz museum. It took issue with the apology and characterized the incident as intentional and exploitative.
“The fact that Auschwitz image was used to promote a WWE match is hard to call ‘an editing mistake’. Exploiting the site that became a symbol of enormous human tragedy is shameless and insults the memory of all victims of Auschwitz,” the museum’s account tweeted.
Natalie Belsky, a history professor at the University of Minnesota at Duluth, told the Washington Post that the promo was “minimizing what happened” and had the potential to re-traumatize survivors.
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The promo was meant to be humorous, as Dominik’s “tough-guy” persona was only a cover for his spoiled and pampered nature. When referring to his time in prison, during which the footage of Auschwitz was shown, he was actually referring to the time when he was put in jail overnight. He was jailed after trying to pick a fight with his father, Mysterio, who proceeded to defeat his “son” handily in front of thousands of spectators.
Auschwitz was the largest death camp during the Holocaust, and an estimated 1.1 million people were killed there across its five years of existence.
