AP Photo/Charles Krupa
The WWE was forced to apologize Friday after using stock photos of the Auschwitz concentration camp in a fight promo video for WrestleMania.
The promo video aired last Saturday to advertise an upcoming fight between father and son duo Rey Mysterio and Dominik Mysterio and featured pictures of the Auschwitz guard tower and fence, a camp where an estimated 1.1 million people lost their lives during the Holocaust.
A portion of the promo video was shared on Twitter via @fusionaddict, which shows “footage” of Dominik Mysterio being arrested. The video then cuts to Mysterio saying, “I served hard time and I survived,” as photos of a prison cell and the guard towers at Auschwitz were shown.
The Auschwitz Memorial called out the WWE for the using the images on Wednesday, labeling the move as “shameless.”
“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
On Friday, WWE apologized, claiming that they were completely unaware of the situation.
“We had no knowledge of what was depicted. As soon as we learned, it was removed immediately,” the organization told The Washington Post.
According to the Post, the WWE has edited the piece to replace the images from the concentration camp for later airings and reruns.