Knowing the horrors of the Holocaust, and ensuring that it is not a forgotten footnote in history, are general themes to consider with International Holocaust Remembrance Day soon approaching on Sunday, January 27^th.  While this may read as intuitive, polling data within the last year shows that a disturbingly high number of Americans and Europeans lack basic knowledge about the Holocaust. An April 2018 poll put out by the conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, reveals that among Americans—especially millennials—there are “critical gaps both in awareness of basic facts as well as detailed knowledge of the Holocaust.” In a comprehensive survey titled the “Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Study,” the Conference conducted 1,350 interviews with American adults who were 18 or older. They found that close to 70% of Americans believe that fewer people seem to care about the Holocaust compared to decades earlier, and that an event like the Holocaust could happen again. Further, the study reports that Americans have major gaps in knowledge of the Holocaust, especially with more than one-fifth of millennials never having heard of or are unsure if they have heard of the Holocaust. 31% of those surveyed, and 41% of millennials within the sample group, asserted that the death toll of Jews during the Holocaust is at least two million lower than the more than six million who perished during World War II.

These figures are especially concerning given the recent rise in hate group activity and membership. In a February 2018 report, the Southern Poverty Law Center claimed that the number of hate groups over the last three years increased by 20%, and that the number of neo-Nazi groups increased from 99 in 2016 to 121 in 2017. This gives credence to the renewed frequency of anti-Semitism in the United States. In their annual audit, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found a 57% increase in the total number of anti-Semitic incidents between 2016 and 2017.

A previous post on the Brandeis Blog elaborates on a CNN poll that correlates the growth of anti-Semitism in Europe to data that reveals Europeans’ increasingly faded memory of the Holocaust. The poll shows that more than a third of Europeans have either never heard of or know only scant information about the Nazi genocide. Of even greater alarm is the measurably high rates of apathy and indifference among younger Europeans. In France, 20% of young adults have never heard of the Holocaust. The European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency has advocated for continued Holocaust education and “awareness raising activities,” to inform the next generation and protect Jewish communities safe from violence and hate crimes. Similar measures in the U.S. have been undertaken by advocacy groups such as the ADL and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to promote education among Americans, specifically millennials.