January 2, 2006
A Polish Jewish leader has criticized an advertisement by a local bus tour operator offering for round-trip tickets to Auschwitz, featuring a barbed wire on the ad. The advertisement was “outrageous and beyond tasteless”, Piotr Kadlcik, chairman of Poland’s Union of Religious Jewish Communities, told JTA. The newspaper "Gazeta Wyborcza" reported that the PKS Malopolska bus firm had recently put up posters in hotels, travel agencies and hostels around Krakow that read, in English, “Auschwitz? With a return ticket? From the city center? Yes it’s possible.” The text in the advertisement, offering a guided trip of the death camp, was superimposed against a fuzzy photograph of a camp building with barbed wire in sharp focus. More promotional information is written across the photograph, including departure times and reservation contacts. Kadlcik told JTA he was writing a letter of protest to the company…There is an unfortunate tendency in marketing to do shocking things, but this is … beyond what is acceptable”.
