Auschwitz Condemns GOP Rep for Video Shot Inside Gas Chamber

A Republican congressman is in hot water with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum for filming a video inside a former gas chamber at the Nazi death camp. U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana can be seen in a video posted to YouTube narrating a five-minute clip shot at Auschwitz, where he comments on the Holocaust before switching to U.S. politics. After explaining in detail how thousands of people were incinerated in gas chambers, Higgins says to the camera, “This is why Homeland Security must be squared away, why our military must be invincible.” The Auschwitz Memorial took issue with the video, posting on Twitter on Tuesday that the former gas chamber “is not a stage”—it’s a place for “mournful silence,” adding that a sign in front of the building emphasizes that visitors must “maintain silence” out of respect for the dead.