Barrage of abuse for teen who posts smiling selfie at Auschwitz
A teenager has provoked outrage on Twitter after posting a selfie she took at Aushwitz, along with a smily face emoji.
Breanna Mitchell, who goes by the Twittter name is ‘Princess Breanna’, posted the Tweet in June, although it has only recently been picked up online.
The offending selife has gone viral, being retweeted over 500 times and causing a barrage of online criticism.
“How can you be happy and smile in this pic?” asked Twitter user Tara Simpson. “Do you not understand the horrors and murders that happened here? I’d be crying.”
Other users were equally incredulous. ‘Incredibly disrespectful,’ tweeted Jamie Roe.
‘Ehm, you took a selfie in a place where thousands of people were murdered during WWII. Are you f*****g insane?’ posted @watpoe.
Breanna defended herself against the indignant outpour, tweeting, “Yeah, I do understand what happened there. I studied it for years with my dad but he died…a year ago, so that trip actually meant something to me and I was happy about it.”
Although Breanna tweeted that she wishes “people would quit tweeting to, quoting, retweeting, and favoriting my picture of my smiling in Auschwitz Concentration Camp,” the teenager also appeared to be pleased with her new-found Twitter fame.
Despite pleas for the photos to be removed, the photo remained online. Breanna tweeted, “Over 150 retweets. Turnnnnnn uppppppp.”
Some Twitter users jumped to her defense, however. Tori tweeted, ‘Y’all acting like the girl took a selfie with Hitler himself, chill.
Another user took credit for taking a similarly offensive selfie:
Breanna isn’t the first person to take selfies that have been deemed inappropriate.
Prime Minister David Cameron, Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were met with distaste after they took a selfie at Nelson Mandela’s funeral.
There is even a blog, selfiesatseriousplaces.tumblr.com, dedicated to aggregating the most tactless of snaps.
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