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A weekend fashion photo shoot at the National Holocaust Monument was an inappropriate use of the site, which Jewish leaders say should be a place for reflection and learning, not levity.

“It’s not a place for fashion shoot,” said Mina Cohn, director of the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship at Carleton University’s Max and Tessie Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies. “You wouldn’t do a fashion shoot at the National War Memorial downtown. That is not acceptable. And it’s not acceptable here either.”

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Cohn, the child of two Holocaust survivors, was reacting to being told visitors to the monument Sunday afternoon stumbled upon a fashion shoot being done inside the monument, using its bare concrete walls and sharp lines as a backdrop.

An Instagram post by Montreal clothing designer Michèle Beaudoin uploaded Sunday shows a woman standing at the monument wearing a dress made of strips of grey fabric. The dress is very revealing and covers the model’s bare backside with grey lace. The distinctive angles of the monument are easily identifiable and the Canadian War Museum is visible in the background.