British tourist’s TikTok critique of Auschwitz Museum’s café goes viral

A TikTok video made by a British tourist has gone viral for her complaints about the high prices and low quality of drinks at a café near the entrance to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum.

The video, which has since become unavailable, was posted by user FreeSpirit666 on September 14 and captioned “Prices at auschwitz.” It racked up at least 4 million views and more than 202,000 likes.

“We fancied a coffee, so there is a restaurant there because we were early, so we thought we would get a coffee, but they don’t do decaffeinated and they don’t do any other milk other than real milk,” Lynne, the tourist, said.

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She opted for a “strawberry smoothie, which tasted very watered down,” and then asked her daughter, who had a lemonade, what she thought about it. Her daughter made a grimace and said it tasted like “Dettol,” an antiseptic cleaning product. In the video, Lynne took a sniff of the bottle and said it smelled like “toilet cleaner.”

Together, their drinks cost 9 GBP ($12), Lynne said. “When you come to Auschwitz, bring some food and drink,” she recommended.

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Commenters swiftly moved the attention from the beverages to the significance of the café’s location, situated at the memorial site of the concentration and extermination camp in Oświęcim, Poland. There, the Nazis murdered approximately 1.1 million people. The vast majority were Jews, but the victims also included Poles, Roma and Sinti, Soviet prisoners of war and others. The museum’s regulations require visitors to the grounds of the Museum to “behave with due solemnity and respect.”

Many viewers criticized the video for being disrespectful and said the tourist should be “ashamed.” Others cracked jokes over the post.

“Let’s not forget where we are,” one wrote, as shared by The Independent. “This is a concentration camp where thousands died, not a 5 star restaurant experience.”

“I went to Auschwitz, I didn’t take food and drink, and quite honestly, I didn’t feel like eating and drinking, It wasn’t entertainment for me. The last thing on my mind, was my comfort,” wrote another person.

A spokesperson for the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum told British outlet The Times that the café is run independently by an external provider, which clearly displays the prices.

“For us, the essential point remains that people come to the Auschwitz Memorial to learn about the history of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp, to confront the fate of its victims and to commemorate them,” he told the paper.

Alex Hearn, the co-director for the UK’s Labour Against Antisemitism, said, “This highlights how some people have become disconnected from the true horror of the Holocaust and the death camp,” according to The Times.

In response to the criticism, the tourist made a follow-up video pointing blame at the cafe as well, for “making money out of a death camp.” Still, she explained that some people may need something to eat or drink after a multi-hour tour of the grounds.

The site was part of the German Nazi’s “Final Solution” for genocide against European Jews. It was used from June 1940 until its liberation in January 1945.

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