You can catch Pokémon nearly anywhere while playing Pokémon Go, but the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum would really like people to stop doing it inside the museum’s Washington, D.C., building.
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Pawel Sawikci, a spokesman for the Auschwitz Memorial, told CNNMoney that he wasn’t familiar with the game, but has seen screenshots posted to Twitter of the use of Pokemon Go in Holocaust memorials.
During a visit to the museum on Tuesday, a Reuters reporter saw various visitors using phones to take photos or send messages, but no one obviously playing games.
Nearly everywhere you turn, it seems, people have their eyes glued to smartphone screens playing Pokemon Go. Officials at both places are now trying to get themselves removed from the game’s list.
“Pokemon Go” features local landmarks and businesses at its many “Pokestops”, or places where players can travel to in real life to get free stuff in the game.
Cue the museum’s communications director, Andrew Hollinger, to state the obvious: “Playing the game is not appropriate in. a memorial to the victims of Nazism”.
The issue with the Holocaust Museum isn’t the only concern related to the app. Experts have advised of potential security issues related to players giving access to their Google accounts as well as safety issues as players go on virtual scavenger hunts for Pokemon. Different and more types of Pokemons appear, depending on the location of the player and time of day.
Pokemon: Gotta catch ’em all – unless they’re in the Holocaust Museum.
Developer Niantic Labs has yet to respond to a request for comment by The Post on whether the Holocaust Museum can be excluded from Pokemon Go.
Pokemon Go is a free downloadable app for iOS and Android devices in which players search out digital Pokémon in the real world using the Global Positioning System locator on their devices.
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“It’s not like we came here to play”, Angie, a 37-year-old friend of Dustin’s who also declined a last name, told the newspaper.
