Congressman apologizes for recording video in Auschwitz gas chamber

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 was 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 says 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 said in the video the U.S. military "must be invincible."

A post on the Auschwitz Memorial's official Twitter account said Tuesday that a former gas chamber is not a stage but a place where there should be respectful silence. 

Later Tuesday, it posted a photo of the entrance sign to that building that asks visitors to "maintain silence here."