Two-thirds of millennials don’t know about Auschwitz – the place where 1.1 million people were killed by Nazi Germany. According to the same poll, 41 percent of Americans don’t know of what was once the most brutal concentration camp.
Including the 1.1 million people murdered at Auschwitz, 6 million Jews perished alongside 11 million victims, including 1.5 million children during the Holocaust.
Despite this shocking lack of awareness, people heed Jesse Jackson’s chant “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Civ has got to go.” Considering that Adolf Hitler sought to destroy Western Civilization along with its enlightenment and traditional values, teaching Western Civilization, including the Holocaust, in schools is more vital than ever.
As the grandson of Holocaust survivors, these figures are alarming and disturbing. As the number of Holocaust survivors decreases and the number of genocides since the Holocaust only increases, the message of “Never Again” is as urgent as it has ever been.
The survey, released on Thursday by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, gave a grim overview of Holocaust awareness among 1,350 American adults. Thursday marked Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, which is also observed by American Jews. It is the anniversary of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.
This survey shows that a shocking knowledge gap exist — for example, 45 percent of all adults cannot name a concentration camp or ghetto. However, the survey found that 93 percent of respondents believe students should learn in school about the Holocaust, with 80 percent saying a major reason to do so is to prevent another atrocity. Currently, 20 states are trying to mandate Holocaust education.
The study comes amid political hysteria in the United States which has included comparing President Trump’s election to Hitler’s rise to power, along with other Holocaust comparisons. According to the survey, 58 percent of respondents believe something like the Holocaust could happen again, with almost 52 percent saying it could happen in the U.S. today.
The research also comes about during a rising trend in the alt-right, an ideology which subscribes to some Nazi ideology as well as white supremacy, and took center-stage in Charlottesville, Va., last August.
“It’s not as if we’re living in a country that’s totally in denial. The survey buttresses that,” Greg Schneider, the Executive Vice President behind the organization which released the study, told Time magazine.
He added, “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.”
Holocaust and genocide awareness should be mandated in schools, from middle school to colleges and universities. To quote Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, “For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”
