Auschwitz officials chastise American lawmaker for video
Rep. Higgins of La. recorded from death camp’s gas chamber
Officials at the Auschwitz- Birkenau Memorial and Museum chastised a U. S. congressman who recorded a video in which he lobbies for a strong military and tight homeland security from inside a gas chamber at the Nazi death camp in Poland.
Louisiana Republican Clay Higgins recorded five minutes of video, including some from areas of the site where Jews were gassed and their bodies burned. Higgins, an Army veteran and former police officer, briefly explains in the video how the victims were killed.
“This is why homeland security must be squared away, why our military must be invincible,” Higgins says, with some of the ovens in the background.
That drew the attention of Auschwitz officials. “Everyone has the right to personal reflections. However, inside a former gas chamber, there should be mournful silence. It’s not a stage,” the museum tweeted Tuesday.
The New York- based Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect condemned the video with stronger language.
“Congressman Higgins, Auschwitz is not a television studio,” Steven Goldstein, the center’s executive director, said in a statement. “It is the site of genocide and tragedy for the Jewish people that you have disrespected. Not only must you apologize, but you must also get the sensitivity training appropriate for your continued service in the U. S. Congress.”
Later Wednesday, Higgins apologized for the “unintended pain” caused by the video.
The video was posted Saturday on the conservative Lee Johnson Media’s YouTube channel. In the video, Higgins goes on to say that man’s inhumanity “can be quite shocking.” He said the world is a smaller place today than during World War II, and that the U. S. is more susceptible “to a horror like this.”
Higgins made news last month after a terror attack in London when he posted on Facebook the assertion that “the free world ... all of Christendom ... is at war with Islamic horror.”
Higgins’ post also said that suspected radicalized Islamists should be denied entry into the United States. “Every conceivable measure should be engaged to hunt them down,” he said. “Hunt them, identify them, and kill them. Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all.”