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Louisiana congressman apologizes for video he made in Auschwitz gas chamber

In this Dec. 10, 2016, file photo, Republican candidate Clay Higgins, with his wife, Becca, addresses supporters after his victory in Louisiana’s 3rd congressional district run-off election in Lake Charles, La. Officials at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum have criticized Clay Higgins for narrating part of a five-minute video from inside a former gas chamber at the Nazi concentration camp in Poland. (Lee Celano / Daily Advertiser)
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS – A Louisiana congressman is apologizing for the “unintended pain” caused by a video of his visit to a gas chamber at a Nazi concentration camp.

Rep. Clay Higgins said in an email Wednesday that he’s retracting the video, recorded at the Auschwitz camp in Poland that is now part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.

The Republican posted the video on his Facebook page on Saturday, sparking criticism from museum directors and the director of a global Holocaust research center in Jerusalem, who said it was inappropriate to deliver a political message from inside a gas chamber.

Higgins said he intended his video to be a tribute to those who died at Auschwitz. He also said he wanted to “remind the world that evil exists.”

Higgins says in the video the U.S. military “must be invincible.”