Tourists who recently visited the site of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in southern Poland were horrified to see “showers” installed at the entrance of the site, where over a million Jews were killed in gas chambers disguised as shower rooms.

“As soon as I got off the bus I walked into the shower contraption,” one visitor, Meyer Bolka, told Israel's Channel 2 television station. “I was in shock.

“It was a punch to the gut. I walked up to the reception and asked the worker there about the showers, she said it was a hot day.

“I told her: ‘With all due respect it reminds me of the gas chambers.’’

The Auschwitz Museum on Monday dismissed criticism of its installation of sprinklers at the entrance to the Nazi death camp, saying they were put there for the health and safety of visitors during extreme summer heat, and that it was wrong to associate them with gas chamber showers.

“It is really hard for us to comment on some suggested historical references since the mist sprinklers do not look like showers and the fake showers installed by Germans inside some of the gas chambers were not used to deliver gas into them,” the museum said in a statement.

“Zyklon B was dropped inside the gas chambers in a completely different way — through holes in the ceiling or airtight drops in walls.”

Prisoners arrived in Auschwitz by train before being separated into those fit for work and those who would die immediately.

In many cases the victims were told they were being sent for a shower and delousing. They were ordered to undress before walking into the gas chamber, which was modelled to look like a shower room. Some prisoners were given soap and a towel before the deadly Zkylon B gas flooded into the room.