AUSCHWITZ (JTA) — A travel blogger has apologized after posting a photo on his Instagram account of a rubber duck on the iconic tracks outside of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
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The blogger, who goes by the Instagram handle @atuk.apil and writes in Spanish, has taken photos of the rubber duck in front of other sites, including Buckingham Palace, the Colosseum, Red Square, and Mount Vesuvius. The account has around 3,400 followers. The image of the death camp in Poland has since been taken down.
The Auschwitz photo was posted on Wednesday and reported by Fox News over the weekend.
The Auschwitz Memorial called the blogger out in a tweet on Wednesday.
“What if someone who travels with a rubber duck & uses it as an artistic Instagram convention arrives at @AuschwitzMuseum? Is the rubber duck in front of the Gate of Death disrespectful – even unintentionally? Or is it a side effect of the visual world we should accept/ignore?” the memorial wrote on Twitter.
What if someone who travels with a rubber duck & uses it as an artistic Instagram convention arrives at @AuschwitzMuseum?
Is the rubber duck in front of the Gate of Death disrespectful – even unintentionally? Or is it a side effect of the visual world we should accept/ignore? pic.twitter.com/RVqqVPL9CH
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) November 6, 2019
On Thursday, the memorial shared an apology it said came from the blogger.
We kept the author informed about this discussion. The image has already been removed. The apology followed. pic.twitter.com/sZC2UnDbxl
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) November 7, 2019
Some guy with three thousand followers just got a lot of publicity.