Don't Play Pokémon Go At The Holocaust Museum, OK?

The museum houses three Pokéstops, and is not happy about it.
Getty Images/ Photo Illustration: Gabriela Landazuri

Pokémon characters are now showing up in the darnedest places, including the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C, thanks to the app Pokémon Go.

Currently, there are three Pokéstops in the museum, but that doesn’t jibe well with the solemn and serious message of the place, according to museum spokesman Andrew Hollinger.

“Playing the game is not appropriate in the museum, which is a memorial to the victims of Nazism,” Hollinger told the Washington Post. “We are trying to find out if we can get the museum excluded from the game.”

Some of the characters that have been “captured” at the Holocaust Museum are particularly tasteless considering their location.

One player photographed a Pokémon called Koffing, which is known for emitting poisonous gas, right near an auditorium that shows testimonials of Jews who survived the gas chambers.

The Holocaust Museum isn’t the only museum that is becoming inundated with Pokémon characters.

Hyperallergic.com said museumgoers all over the world are forgoing Picasso for Pikachu, and posted these tweets as proof.

Niantic Labs hasn’t explained if places can be removed from the Pokémon Go app, but company CEO John Henke told Mashable that the various Pokéspots were not chosen at random.

“We basically defined the kinds of places that we wanted to be part of the game,” Hanke said. “Things that were public artwork, that were historical sites, that were buildings with some unique architectural history or characteristic, or unique local businesses.”

Before You Go

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