A nationwide survey released on Wednesday showed a “worrying lack of basic Holocaust knowledge” among adults under 40, including over 1 in 10 respondents who did not recall ever having heard the word “Holocaust” before.
What We Know:
- The U.S. Millennial Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Survey, touted as the first-ever 50-state survey on Holocaust knowledge among Millennials and Generation Z, showed that many of the respondents were unclear about the basic facts of the genocide. 63% of respondents did not know that 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, with over half of those thinking the death toll was fewer than 2 million. During World War II, over 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos were established but almost 50% of those surveyed could not name a single one.
“The most important lesson is that we can’t lose any more time,” said Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which commissioned the study. “If we let these trends continue for another generation, the crucial lessons from this terrible part of history could be lost.”
- The Holocaust was the state-sponsored mass persecution and murder of millions of people under the Nazi regime, led by Adolf Hitler. The genocide campaign targeted those who Hitler, and therefore the government, believed to be “biologically inferior”. These were rooted in ideas of homophobia and anti-Semitism as well as targeting those with disabilities. Through the use of concentration camps, gas chambers, firing squads, and other methods, the Nazi regime targeted the Jewish people in particular, killing nearly 2 of every 3 European Jews by 1945.
- The survey’s data came from 11,000 interviews that were conducted across the country by either phone and online with a random, demographically representative sample of respondents ages 18 to 39. The data collection was led by a task force that included Holocaust survivors, museum historians and experts, nonprofits, and educational institutions. The Claims Conference, a nonprofit that works to secure material compensation for Holocaust survivors and commissioned the survey, said the lack of Holocaust knowledge demonstrated in the study is “shocking” and “saddening”.
- Besides raising concerns about Holocaust ignorance, the study also raised concerns about Holocaust denial. Only 90% of those surveyed believed the Holocaust happened with 7% saying they were not sure and 3% denying that it happened. In one of the more shocking revelation from the survey, is 11% of respondents believe Jews caused the Holocaust. In New York, the state with the largest Jewish population, that number rises to 19%.
- “There is no doubt that Holocaust denial is a form of anti-Semitism,” said Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of modern Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Emory University in Atlanta. “And when we fail to actively remember the facts of what happened, we risk a situation where prejudice and anti-Semitism will encroach on those facts.”
- Experts believe some of the problems may be connected to social media. According to the survey, half of the respondents have come across Holocaust denial or distortion posts online. Additionally, 56% of those surveyed reported having seen Nazi symbols, like the swastika, on social media or in their communities within the past five years.
- The majority of adults who took the survey said they believe something like the Holocaust could happen again, an alarming revelation as some worry the decades-old rallying cry to “never forget” is being forgotten with few Holocaust survivors still alive to share the lessons of the Holocaust. “When you learn the history of the Holocaust, you are not simply learning about the past,” Lipstadt said. “These lessons remain relevant today in order to understand not only anti-Semitism but also all the other ‘isms’ of society. There is real danger to letting them fade.”
- Although many respondents shared that they first learned about the Holocaust in school, the survey suggests that education might be incomplete as not everyone could associate it with World War II. 22% associated it with World War I, 10% were not sure, 5% connected it with the Civil War, and still, 3% connected it with the Vietnam war.
- The survey also split up the data by state, ranking states on their Holocaust knowledge based on average scores throughout the survey. Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Massachusetts, states that do not require Holocaust education, ranked the highest in Holocaust knowledge. Contrastly, respondents in New York, Indiana, and California, where Holocaust education is required, were most likely to believe the Holocaust is a myth or has been exaggerated, with rates higher than 20 percent of the surveyed population.
80% of respondents agree that it is important to learn about the Holocaust partly so it never happens again and educators are working on ways to improve Holocaust education across the country. “We’ve seen it time and time again,” Schneider said. “Education is the best way to prevent ignorance and to prevent hate.
