Auschwitz museum launches tool to fight Holocaust denial

The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is pictured in Oswiecim, Poland, on Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Warsaw, Poland -- The museum at the site of the former Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau launched on Wednesday a campaign to fight Holocaust denial on social media.

The “Stop Denial” online tool helps individuals debunk common denialist arguments using “documents, photographs, witness accounts or the results of historical research”, said the Auschwitz museum in southern Poland.

It includes a manual instructing users to respond to denialist content on social media by commenting on posts with a link to the “Stop Denial” website.

The museum cites examples of false claims it aims to debunk, such as statements like “Official documentation lacks information about the extermination at Auschwitz” and the “International Red Cross raised no objections after visit to camp”.

Museum director Piotr Cywinski said in a statement that in the past “few could look into the eyes of the living survivors and say in cold blood that all their testimonies were lies”.

“Today, there are few left. So anti-Semitic, xenophobic, populist voices are rising up,” he added.

Museum spokesman Bartosz Bartyzel said the launch of the campaign follows a “surge of negationist activity” across social media and in public discourse.

“The best solution, help, rescue for disinformation is information,” he told AFP.

Earlier this month, MEP Grzegorz Braun -- a candidate in this year’s Polish presidential election who garnered more than six percent of the vote -- claimed in a radio interview that “Auschwitz with gas chambers is unfortunately fake”.

In May, the museum warned against Facebook posts featuring AI-generated fictional images of camp victims. The museum has long used its social media accounts to share authentic victim photos and information to raise Holocaust awareness.

Nazi Germany built the death camp in the city of Oswiecim after occupying Poland during World War II.

The Holocaust site has become a symbol of Nazi Germany’s genocide of six million European Jews, one million of whom died at the camp between 1940 and 1945.

More than 100,000 non-Jews also died at Auschwitz-Birkenau, including non-Jewish Poles, Roma, and Soviet soldiers.