Looks like someone at Groupon didn’t have a history education.
The online coupon site posted a deal on Friday for a “One-Week Technology Camp at Premier Education Consulting” located in Little Neck, Queens.
The $699 deal valued at $999 just has one major problem though: the photo used to promote the class is from a concentration camp.
“Arbeit macht frei,” reads the sign in the photo, a phrase of Nazi propaganda that translates from German to “Work makes you free.”
The slogan was used at the entrance to Auschwitz and many other concentration camps.
So far, none of the 50 classes offered have been purchased.
“We are trying to contact Groupon,” a representative from Premier Education Consulting told amNewYork. “We have a tremendous problem.” The photo was reportedly not the consulting company’s selection.
As of 11:45 a.m., the photo was swapped for stock art depicting a classroom of white students writing in notebooks.
On Friday afternoon, Groupon released a statement about the use of the photo: “We’ve run a number of deals for Holocaust Museums and educational tours of Auschwitz, and this picture exists in our global stock image library to provide potential imagery for those types of offers. Unfortunately, it was also among the options for our self-service deals and the merchant selected it as the image to accompany their offer. We are adjusting our internal controls to prevent this issue in the future.”
