WWE slammed by for using Holocaust footage in Wrestlemania ‘prison’ promo

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Top wrestling company WWE has been slammed for its bizarre decision to include a clip of Auschwitz death camp during a video promo highlighting a top feud at Wrestlemania.

During the marquee event on Saturday (April 2), a video clip played to hype up the battle between father and son Rey and Dominik Mysterio.

The video was supposed to portray the latter as a some kind of convict who had been brought straight to the SoFi Stadium in Hollywood, California, by police.

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And during the promo, a brief clip showing Auschwitz was seen, showing the infamous barbed wire fencing and parts of the extermination camp used by Adolf Hitler's murderous Nazis during the Second World War.

Within minutes of it happening, it caused outrage among fans, as well as the Auschwitz Memorial.

The latter tweeted: “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 of all victims of Auschwitz.”

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It is thought that around 1.1 million victims – mainly Jewish people – were slaughtered during the five years Auschwitz was in operation.

A WWE spokesman told the Daily Star: "We had no knowledge of what was depicted.

"As soon as we learned, it was removed immediately. We apologize for this error."

The clip was removed during the replays of the event on the WWE Network.

Fans were quick to slam the organisation – which was bought out by UFC's parent company Endeavour on Monday (April 3).

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One fan said: “If it wasn’t an editing mistake I doubt they remove it without some sort of pressure. “Granted I don’t really blame the organization (Auschwitz Memorial) for having red flags up given the current environment globally.”

Another wrote: “WWE has to own up to mistakes and not try to make real and delicate things to be flashy and entertaining.”

A third added: “How did this not get cut on the editing floor before it first ran?”

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• Wrestlemania
• WWE
• Hollywood
• Adolf Hitler

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