‘Fun for the family:’ TripAdvisor apologizes, removes hateful Auschwitz review
Travel company backtracks after initially saying reviewer, who claimed to have gone to death camp to ‘test the chamber,’ complied with its submission guidelines
NEEDHAM, Massachusetts — Travel website TripAdvisor has removed an insensitive review of the Auschwitz Museum after initially saying it complied with its submission guidelines.
The museum at the site of the Nazi concentration camp in Poland on Thursday tweeted that it had asked the Massachusetts-based travel website to take down a review in which the writer said they went to Auschwitz to “test the chamber” and called the site “fun for the family.”
More than 1 million people, most of them Jews, were killed by the Nazis at Auschwitz during World War II.
According to the company, “it complies with their submission guidelines,” the tweet said.
TripAdvisor later reversed course, removing the review and banning the user who wrote it.
We have reported this review of the @AuschwitzMuseum posted on @TripAdvisor.
'This place was great went there with my newborn babys to test the chamber but they came out deformed. But its fun for the family.'
According the company, it complies with their submission guidelines. pic.twitter.com/JEHuLaTKxP
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) May 6, 2021
The museum then thanked TripAdvisor.
In a statement, the company said it does not tolerate discrimination and regularly blocks or removes millions of reviews that violate its guidelines.
“In this case, our initial screening failed to identify this review as promoting intolerance. Through our escalation process, this review was removed. We always aim to get it right the first time and we apologize to the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum and the Jewish community-at-large for this initial miss,” the statement said.
The Times of Israel Community.