Auschwitz tweet councillor Rosemary Healy suspended
A Labour councillor has been suspended for sharing a parody of a Conservative election poster, doctored to include an image of a Nazi death camp.
Nottingham City Councillor Rosemary Healy has expressed "profound apologies" for retweeting the picture of Auschwitz to her 1,500 followers.
The poster bore the words "Let's stay on the road to a stronger economy."
In the doctored version the road was replaced with a rail line leading to the infamous concentration camp.
The words "More people on zero hours. More tax cuts for the rich. No more NHS" were added to the picture of the death camp.
The Auschwitz concentration camp was in Nazi-occupied Poland, and the parody depicts a railway line, but political blogger Thomas Pride tweeted the image with the words: "The new Tory campaign poster featuring a German road's a bit controversial:"
Ms Healy, who is the council's executive assistant for community protection and represents the Mapperley ward, deleted her retweet and later deleted her Twitter account.
Before she deleted her account she tweeted: "Profound apologies for that retweet which was a genuine mistake and would never have been retweeted had I recognised it for what it was."
The Conservative group leader on Nottingham City Council, Georgina Culley, told the Right of Centre website Ms Healy "should know better".
"This trivialises the horrors of the Holocaust and I think Councillor Healy and her party should be ashamed," she said.
"The city council should also act to distance itself from the perpetuation of these tweets; such remarks are offensive."
Some Twitter users criticised Ms Healy but others believed she had made a mistake.
Mr Pride defended his image against complaints from others on Twitter that it was "deeply ignorant" and "belittles the Holocaust", insisting it was legitimate satire and that he is of Polish descent.
He tweeted: "Tasteless and shocking? Oh yes. It's meant to be. Amusing - no. It's deadly serious:"