The sign “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work makes you free”) is pictured at the main gate of the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz in Oswiecim, Poland. Reuters/Pawel Ulatowski

i24 News – The Auschwitz-Birkenau museum in Poland said on Friday that it was the target of propaganda spread by Russian state agencies in order to bolster the Kremlin narrative of the Ukrainian government’s “Nazi” ties or character.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials repeatedly claimed the invasion of Ukraine was aimed at “denazifying” the neighboring country.

The museum said that social media posts falsely claim to show anti-Russian stickers placed around the memorial at the former site of the Auschwitz death camp site in southern Poland, an area under German occupation during World War II.

“Russia and Russians,” the stickers appearing in fake images say, “the only gas you and your country deserve is Zykon B,” in a reference to the gas used in the mass murder of Jews and others at the death camp, which operated during 1940-1945.

The images were tweeted by official Russian sites, including the Russian Arms Control Delegation in Vienna, and retweeted by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the apparent intention of portraying Russians as targets of Western bigotry.

The Auschwitz Museum said no such stickers were found at the places depicted in the images, and that security cameras did not capture anyone affixing anything to the locations.

An analysis showed the photos were manipulated and the stickers added digitally, the museum noted.

“The use of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial for propaganda that lends credence to alleged Russophobia and strengthens theories about the need for denazification of Ukraine should be opposed by all thinking people worldwide.”