The visitor center at the Auschwitz concentration camp is being criticized by visitors who were shocked to see showers set up outside of the Polish site over the weekend.

For some, the cooling stations offered a dark reminder of the camp's horrifying past.

See also: A Sunday stroll through Auschwitz

As the area suffered from severe heat, the site's managers set up misting showers to keep visitors cool as temperatures soared well into the 90s.

But some Israeli visitors over the weekend took particular offense to the showers, which they saw as painfully similar to the showers Jews were forced into on arrival in the camp.

“As a Jew who has lost so many relatives in the Holocaust, they looked like the showers that the Jews were forced to take before entering the gas chambers,” Meir Bulka, 48, told The Jerusalem Post. He said that other visitors were also disturbed by the showers.

“All the Israelis felt this was very distasteful," he said. "Someone called it a ‘Holocaust gimmick.’”

Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi concentration camps and extermination centers during World War II. More than 1.1 million men, women and children died in the camp, primarily from 1942 to 1944.

It is now a major memorial for those whose lives were lost in the Holocaust. More than a million people have visited the Auschwitz memorial since the beginning of 2015.

Miejsce przed Auschwitz stworzone dla ochłody. Choc w taki upał zbawienne, wygląda nieco przerażajaco. #auschwitz #oswiecim A photo posted by Nikola Tkacz (@nikolatkacz) on Aug 30, 2015 at 3:39am PDT

A spokesperson for the Auschwitz memorial told Mashable that the sprinklers were placed near the entrance to a museum to cool the air, as there is no shade in the area.

"Therefore we must do everything possible to minimise the risks connected with the heat and high temperatures and take care of the safety of health of our visitors," read a statement from a museum spokesperson. "The health of visitors is for us the priority during the time of these extreme heats and the sprinklers have been really helpful. The sprinklers are installed on the days of highest temperatures and removed with the temperature drops."

The "suggested historical references," according to the museum, are "really difficult for us to comment" on.

"Fake showers which were installed by Germans inside some of the gas chambers in Auschwitz were not used to deliver gas into them," the statement said. Zyklon B, a pesticide, "was delivered inside the gas chamber in a completely different way."

Bulka told The Jerusalem Post that he spoke with the visitor center's management, who said the showers were a "good way to cool people off on a very hot day," and apologized if he was offended.