A rising travel blogger is in trouble for a picture that rather seemed ‘innocent’. @Atukapil, an account known for posting images of its travelling rubber duck may have gone too far this time. As one of its escapades, the rubber duck found itself posed in front of the Auschwitz concentration camp memorial. And users have found it offensive and disrespectful.
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The post was flagged by the official Twitter account of the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum
Last Wednesday, Atuk Apil took all the smoke!
The blogger, who runs the Instagram account @Atukapil, gained some popularity for its creative photos with a yellow rubber duck. The duck is often pictured at famous tourist sites like the Buckingham Palace and the Colosseum.
Nevertheless, one recent post did more harm than good. In this one, the yellow photo model was seen in front of Poland’s Auschwitz Memorial and Museum, a place with a history of pain and suffering.
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Its caption read, “It was the largest extermination centre in the history of Nazism, where it is estimated that about 1,300,000 people were sent, of which 1,100,000 died, the vast majority of them Jewish.”
“Auschwitz II (Birkenau), extermination camp, where most of the more than one million victims of the camp died. In this section were women,” he added.
“Trains full of people arrived daily and were immediately separated between ‘fit and unfit’. The fit had a life expectancy of months, while the unfit were sent directly to the gas chambers.”
Although it seemed like a basic history lesson, users find that the duck’s smile made the photo offensive. So much that the users behind the museum’s Twitter account flagged it as follows:
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
“Is the rubber duck in front of the Gate of Death disrespectful – even unintentionally?”
The comments kept coming in and they weren’t pretty
Following the Auschwitz Memorial account’s tweet, the post sparked an entire dialogue all weekend.
Someone replied: “Totally disrespectful & wholly inappropriate. They can’t be that ignorant or uninformed to visit there and not know of the history and suffering that went on there. Sometimes you have to take a step back from social media for likes.”
“@AuschwitzMuseum is not a fun tourist destination or cool looking building. It is a memorial site. It is a place to soberly reflect on the millions of human beings who suffered and died at the hands of others. He is treating it as just another photo opp. Callous and shameful,” another added.
“The concept of taking rubber ducky photos at various destinations is adorable and sweet, but clearly this was highly inappropriate and insensitive”
“It’s not acceptable. I feel like some of these social media celebrities are so stuck in their narcissism that either can’t or won’t step outside of themselves and respect that there are certain things that don’t revolve around them and their perfect picture.”
“I think this is one location the photographer should have decided not to include the duck,” other Twitter users wrote.
Atukapil responds to the backlash with an apology
Thankfully, the user behind the yellow rubber duck account accepted his mistakes.
In another post from the Auschwitz Memorial account showed the personal apology they’d sent.
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
“The intention of the post was the one previously mentioned without intentions to disrespect or generate controversy on the matter,” he began.
“My sincerest apologies to @auschwitzmemorial for the inconvenience and to all the people who have felt offended.”
Also, the picture has been removed from their Instagram account.
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Moreover, a month ago, the museum warned the public over posing on its train tracks.
“When you come to @AuschwitzMuseum remember you are at the site where over 1 million people were killed. Respect their memory,” they tweeted.
“There are better places to learn how to walk on a balance beam than the site which symbolizes deportation of hundreds of thousands to their deaths.”
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