Majority of young people are lacking basic information about the Holocaust, survey finds

Millennials know hardly anything about the Holocaust, survey finds

According to a shocking new survey, an overwhelming majority of young Americans don’t know how many people died in the Holocaust.

According to the study of 1000 millennial and Gen Z American adults aged between 18 and 39, 63 per cent of respondents did not know 6 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.

More than one in three (36 per cent) thought that fewer than 2 million had been killed.

To top that off, almost half couldn’t name a single concentration camp or ghetto from World War II.

As if that wasn’t shocking enough, a significant proportion of respondents – 12 per cent – said they had never even heard of the Holocaust before.

The research was carried out as part of a study by the Claims Conference – an organisation who represent Holocaust survivors in negotiating compensation for the historic tragedy.

The President of the Claims Conference, Gideon Taylor, said:

We need to understand why we aren’t doing better in educating a younger generation about the Holocaust and the lessons of the past.

This needs to serve as a wake-up call to us all, and as a road map of where government officials need to act.

Most disturbing of all in the study is that almost a quarter of participants (23 per cent) believe the Holocaust to be a myth and 11 per cent subscribe to the conspiracy theory that Jewish people caused it.

This could be due, in part, to online misinformation.

Around half of those surveyed have seen Holocaust denial posts online – and many seem to have believed them.

This “wake-up call” on educating young Americans on the Holocaust couldn’t come soon enough.