Americans Are Shockingly Ignorant About the Holocaust, and It's Worse in Europe
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day and a new study reveals a gap in knowledge among Americans about the atrocities committed against Jews.
A Jewish interest group conducted a survey that revealed 45 percent of adults are not able to name a concentration camp or ghetto.
When it comes to one of the most infamous camps, 41 percent of people did not know what Auschwitz was.
And 11 percent had never even heard of the Holocaust at all. One percent of people denied the Holocaust happened altogether.
The study results were released as the world commemorates Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.
"We say 'Never Forget,' but the people who were murdered are literally being forgotten as we speak," Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference told TIME.
The Claims Conference is the organization behind the study showing just how much people are forgetting.
They surveyed 1,350 American adults by phone and the web and of those surveyed more than half believe it could happen again, right here in America.
Schneider said the results stress the importance of teaching Holocaust history.
Most states do not require students to learn about the Holocaust, but 93 percent of adults agree that Americans should learn about the event in school.
"It's not as if we're living in a country that's totally in denial. The survey buttresses that," Schneider said. "But there are things that really surprised us. Like, 80 percent of Americans have never been to a Holocaust museum, and that's pretty surprising given the number of them. There are places where you can learn about the Holocaust all over the country."
Meanwhile, the situation in Europe is more dire for Jews. They're facing anti-Semitism at a higher level any time since the days of World War II and the Holocaust.
That’s the conclusion from a report by the European Jewish Congress.
The group's president told Quartz Online that anti-Semitism is becoming more normalized in Europe.
He adds that in many parts of the continent, Jewish communities and institutions can only operate under strict security measures and that fences, surveillance, and police and military protection have become part of their daily lives.
