Following the use of footage from the Auschwitz concentration camp during a video package at WrestleMania, WWE has issued a statement and apology to the Washington Post.
It was an error, according to the WWE spokesperson. WWE claimed in the statement that it was unaware of what was portrayed. “We had no knowledge of what was depicted,” WWE said in the statement. “As soon as we learned, it was removed immediately.”
The Auschwitz Memorial tweeted the following prior to WWE’s clarification:
“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.”
In the less than 5 years that Auschwitz was operational, an estimated 1.1 million people were killed there, the majority of whom—roughly 1 million—were Jews.
