During a promotional video for a match at WrestleMania 39, World Wrestling Entertainment accidentally used footage of the Auschwitz concentration camp in a compilation of jails and prisons, subsequently apologizing and removing the footage from future broadcasts.
According to outlet Wrestling Attitude, during “WrestleMania Night 1,” the company used footage of the camp in then-Nazi-occupied Poland to promote a match between father and son adversaries Rey and Dominik Mysterio.
The wrestling website states that the match was heavily promoted in the weeks leading up to the event, with the son adopting the character called “Prison Dom” after spending a night in jail, harassing his father until he agreed to wrestle him at the WWE’s biggest annual event.
Despite having the “most successful WrestleMania of all time,” the company apologized and removed the footage from tapings.
“We had no knowledge of what was depicted,” the WWE said in statement to NBC News.
“As soon as we learned, it was removed immediately. We apologize for this error,” the company added. The outlet noted that the spokesman said the WWE took immediate action once the error was flagged.
The footage was reportedly replaced with generic images of jails with barbed wire.
The Auschwitz Memorial Museum called the use of the footage into question, saying in a statement on Twitter that the WWE was “exploiting” the location.
“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,” the museum said.
The wrestling giant boasted about its event in a press release, citing over 500 million views over two days, a 42% increase over 2022.
The company also says the event saw over $20 million in revenue, doubling the previous record, and sold the most merchandise ever at the event, along with a record-setting gate of $21.6 million.
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