Auschwitz Museum slams 'tasteless' ice cream stand outside 'Death Gate' where the Nazis committed mass murder in gas chambers

• An ice cream stand has started trading outside the "Death Gate" at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
• An Auschwitz Museum spokesperson said it showed "a lack of respect for a special historical place."
• 1.1 million people were murdered by Hitler's Nazis at the Auschwitz camp complex between 1940-45.

Officials from the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp that Hitler's Nazis built in occupied Poland have slammed an ice cream stand for setting up outside the iconic "Death Gate."

A spokesperson for the Auschwitz Museum, Bartosz Bartyzel, told the Polish newspaper Gazeta Krakowska in a statement that it was "an example of not only aesthetic tastelessness but also a lack of respect for a special historical place located nearby," per Sky News.

Despite the outrage at the ice cream stand's location a few hundred feet from the entrance to the Nazi death camp, it parks on public land just outside of the camp, so there is nothing the organization can do about it. 

"We trust that the competent local government authorities will solve this embarrassing problem," Bartyzel told Gazeta Krakowska.

—ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) May 8, 2023

Nearby residents were also "upset" and believed the brightly colored ice cream stand looked "awful," Dagmar Kopijaz of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Site Foundation, Sky News reported.

The "Death Gate," as it is known in Poland, where the stand is located, is the main entrance to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. It is an expanded section of the Auschwitz camp complex, where vast numbers of Nazi prisoners were kept in terrible conditions in 174 wooden barracks and murdered in its gas chambers. Their bodies were burnt in the crematoria.

In total, 1.1 million people died in the Auschwitz camp complex between 1940-45 at the hands of Hitler's Nazis.

'Respect their memory'

The train lines that ran through the "Death Gate" carried freight trains packed full of Jews from communities across Nazi-occupied Europe – 865,000 were gassed on arrival.

Another recent example of inappropriate behavior at the site included a woman who was criticized for taking a model-style photo at Auschwitz. 

The woman is seen posing and smiling in the sunshine in the photo. A Twitter user said, "Today I had one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. Regrettably it didn't seem everyone there found it quite so poignant."

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Responding to the tweet, the Auschwitz Museum said, "Pictures can hold immense emotional & documentation value for visitors. Images help us remember. 

When coming to Auschwitz Museum, visitors should bear in mind that they enter the authentic site of the former camp where over 1 million people were murdered. Respect their memory."

Correction: May 14, 2023 — An earlier version of this story misstated the number of people murdered at Auschwitz. There were 1.1 million killed, not 1.3 million.