Julius Berman, President of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference), on Thursday released a comprehensive national survey of Holocaust awareness and knowledge among adults in the West on the occasion of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day).
The survey, conducted across eight countries—the United States, Britain, France, Austria, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Romania—reveals a concerning lack of basic knowledge about the Holocaust, particularly among younger generations.
A significant portion of adults in most of the surveyed countries believe that an atrocity similar to the Holocaust could occur again today. In the United States, 76% of respondents expressed this belief. Similarly high percentages were observed in Britain (69%), France (63%), Austria (62%), Germany (61%), Poland (54%), Hungary (52%), and Romania (44%).
In the US, data was collected and analyzed by Schoen Consulting with a representative sample of 1350 American adults via landline, cell phone, and online interviews. Respondents were selected at random and constituted a demographically representative sample of the adult population in the United States.
The majority of US adults (84%) are aware that the Holocaust happened in Germany. However, only 37% recognize Poland as a country where the Holocaust took place, despite the fact that over half of the victims (3.5 million Jews) were from Poland. Additionally, although 90% of the Jewish population in the Baltic States was killed during the Holocaust, awareness of this atrocity in these countries remains alarmingly low, with recognition in the single digits.
Nearly half of US adults (45%) and Millennials (49%) are unable to name even one of the more than 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos that existed across Europe during the Holocaust. More than 4 in 10 respondents (41%) did not know what Auschwitz was.
The findings also reveal a significant lack of personal connection to the Holocaust. Most Americans (80%) have never visited a Holocaust museum, and two-thirds (66%) do not personally know or know of a Holocaust survivor.
The survey highlights widening knowledge gaps about the Holocaust, particularly among younger generations. Young people are more likely to believe that the number of Jews murdered during the Holocaust is exaggerated.
“This study underscores the importance of Holocaust education in our schools,” said Greg Schneider, Executive Vice President of the Claims Conference. “There remain troubling gaps in Holocaust awareness while survivors are still with us; imagine when there are no longer survivors here to tell their stories. We must be committed to ensuring the horrors of the Holocaust and the memory of those who suffered so greatly are remembered, told, and taught by future generations.”
