Agency Report –
Almost one in eight young adults in Germany has never heard the terms “Holocaust” or “Shoah,” according to a poll that comes amid the growing popularity of the far right.
In Germany, 12% of 18 to 29-year-olds surveyed told pollsters the terms were not known to them.
The proportion was even higher in Austria at 14%, in Romania at 15% and in France, a soaring 46% of young people.
The survey was commissioned by the Jewish Claims Conference with 1,000 respondents in Germany, France, Austria, Britain, Poland, Hungary, Romania and the United States.
A significant proportion of young people in all of the countries do not know that up to 6 million Jews were killed during the Nazi era, the poll found. In Germany, the proportion of 18 to 29-year-olds was 40%. Some 15% said 2 million or fewer Jews were murdered.
The proportion was even higher in the other countries, the highest in Romania at 32%.
In Germany, 2% of all respondents agreed with the statement that the Holocaust did not take place.
In almost all countries surveyed, a large majority said that something like the Holocaust could happen again today.
In the US, 76% of respondents agreed with the statement, while 69% said so in Britain. In France, 63% said it could happen again, 62% in Austria and 61% in Germany.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany expressed alarm at the results of the study, that was carried out in November 2023.
“The worrying rise in anti-Semitic verbal and physical violence that we are seeing in Germany has its roots to a large extent in disinformation and the lack of information about the Holocaust,” said Central Council President Josef Schuster.
The study highlighted the problem especially with regard to young adults, he said. Schuster called for efforts from lawmakers, educators and the media to counteract this.
The term Holocaust describes the systematic persecution and murder of European Jews by the German National Socialists and their supporters between 1933 and 1945.
Up to 6 million Jews were killed, according to the latest research described on the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial website.
Around 1 million were murdered in the Auschwitz extermination camp which was liberated 80 years ago, on January 27, 1945.
By Verena Schmitt-Roschmann
