Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Estonian Gas Company Uses Auschwitz Image

An Estonian gas company used a photo of Auschwitz to advertise their products.

The website of the Estonian company GasTerm Eesti on Aug. 23 published a photograph of the front gate of the Nazi camp Auschwitz with the famous inscription “Arbeit macht frei,” or work makes you free. The caption of the photo read: “Gas heating – flexible, convenient, and effective.”

The next day the photo was removed from the company’s website and an apology was posted there.

Company director Sven Linros said, according to DzD.ee portal, “Hitler killed himself because he got a gas bill … a lot of people laugh at this, but I do not. I visited Auschwitz with dread. I feel sorry for the victims and their families. The picture was intended for a narrow group of people. We wanted to clarify that the CH4 gas is not toxic and can be used to heat buildings even those with such a sad history.”

This is not the first case of Auschwitz pictures being used in advertisements. In January, a gym in Dubai used an image from Auschwitz with the tag line “Kiss your calories goodbye.”

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.