The United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, is trying to keep the new and popular Pokémon Go app out of the museum, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The app, which was released just last week and has become instantly popular, is a location-based augmented reality mobile game which allows players to capture, battle, and train virtual Pokémon who appear throughout the real world using the device's GPS and camera.
The Holocaust Museum is one of many other landmarks known as a "PokéStop" within the game — a place where players can get free in-game items. There are three PokéStops associated with various parts of the museum.
The museum, however, is less than thrilled.
"Playing the game is not appropriate in the museum, which is a memorial to the victims of Nazism," Andrew Hollinger, the museum's communications director, told The Washington Post. "We are trying to find out if we can get the museum excluded from the game."
The Holocaust Museum's plight highlights how apps that layer a digital world on top of the real one can create awkward situations, especially since the owners of the physical locations often cannot weigh in on how their spaces are being used.
One image circulating online appears to show a player encountering an unsettling digital critter inside the museum: a Pokémon called Koffing that emits poisonous gas floating by a sign for the museum's Helena Rubinstein Auditorium. The auditorium shows the testimonials of Jews who survived the gas chambers.
Hollinger told The Post that the museum is concerned about the potential Koffing appearance. While he stressed that the museum is generally pro-technology and encourages visitors to use social media to share how their experiences with the exhibits moved them, "this game falls very much outside that."
Niantic did not immediately respond to inquiries about the alleged Koffing sighting or if there was any way to honor the Holocaust Museum's request to stop Pokémon from popping up inside its building.