Nearly two-thirds of US young adults unaware 6m Jews killed in the Holocaust

[demmiblue]

Almost two-thirds of young American adults do not know that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, and more than one in 10 believe Jews caused the Holocaust, a new survey has found, revealing shocking levels of ignorance about the greatest crime of the 20th century.

According to the study of millennial and Gen Z adults aged between 18 and 39, almost half (48%) could not name a single concentration camp or ghetto established during the second world war.

Almost a quarter of respondents (23%) said they believed the Holocaust was a myth, or had been exaggerated, or they weren’t sure. One in eight (12%) said they had definitely not heard, or didn’t think they had heard, about the Holocaust.

More than half (56%) said they had seen Nazi symbols on their social media platforms and/or in their communities, and almost half (49%) had seen Holocaust denial or distortion posts on social media or elsewhere online.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/16/holocaust-us-adults-study

[Iliyah]

1. Huh? . .

I learned about WW2 in history class. They don't teach that no more?

[Klaralven]

7. In history class, WW2 was at the end of the book and very lightly covered.

At the time, the Spanish American War was more recent that WW2 is now. There are only about 300,000 WW2 vets still with us. Even the Korean War is fading from memory since it started 70 years ago.

[frazzled]

2. Yikes

I'd say that relevant groups need to get on this, in the way that African American groups have worked to ensure that the depredations of slavery are accurately documented in films, history courses, and literature.

I guess the rallying cry "Never Forget" has gone by the wayside. But it's not just the Holocaust. I wonder what else these kids haven't learned about history in general. Well-conceived courses in American History and World History should be mandatory in every high school, no matter what. Along with a civics course and critical thinking course. We are becoming the most ill-educated country, and that helps to explain why we have become what we are.

[cwydro]

3. And many people of all ages do not realize it wasn't just 6 million Jews.

There were 11 million people killed in the Holocaust, including gay people, people with developmental disabilities, religious dissidents, Romany, political dissidents, etc.

[SoonerPride]

8. I have pink triangle pins for this reason

The gays that the Nazis exterminated were forced to wear the pink triangle in the concentration camps.

It was so much worse than 6 million Jews,as horrific and ghastly as that is.

Literally an abomination of unimaginable proportions.

[cwydro]

12. Yes, I have a pink triangle decal and pin also.

Diabolical, they had symbols for each class of prisoner.

[Croney]

4. I'm not surprised. I asked a teenager what year 9/11 happened,

and she had no idea.

The wisdom and necessity of understanding history are not valued. This seems beyond foolish to me.

[ChicagoRonin]

5. Story from a history teacher friend

We've known each other since high school. We grew up in a fairly liberal Chicago suburb. He taught in both the city here, and later in rural high schools in Ohio.

He told me that when he'd teach the kids in Ohio, they'd often use phrases like "Don't Jew me."
When he told them it was wrong, the response he always got was, "Why? My parents say it."

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. History is often very poorly taught in high school.

It's one of the two classes where the teacher is all too often called "coach". The other is biology class.

Clearly not all history or biology classes are taught by a coach, but my own experience in high school history class wasn't encouraging.

My first semester of world history the teacher was just marking time to retirement, I'm sure. I even caught him in a couple of factual errors, which I spoke up about. He said that Mary Tudor fled England while her brother was king (can't remember if he said she went to France or Spain) and I burst out, "No she didn't!" I pointed out that not only did she not leave the country, but if she had she'd probably not have been invited back when said brother died, and her sister Elizabeth would have become queen five years earlier than she did. He at least had the good grace to say he'd double check, and the next day told the class I was right and he'd be correcting that in future classes.

I knew there was something wrong with a 15 year old knowing the history better than the teacher.

Plus, there are a lot of Holocaust deniers out there, and no doubt at least some of them are teaching high school history.

[RobinA]

9. From What I Observed

when my niece and nephew were in HS, they are now 30 and 28 years old, it was very poorly taught, and that's at a decent high school. There seems to be this bugaboo about teaching in a linear way, and I don't think you can teach history non-linearly and make it coherent.

Also, there's so much more belief in conspiracy nonsense. My nephew believes that the number of Jews killed was "not as many as they say." NOTHING is believed. We asked my niece whether or not she learned something to do with genetics in HS, both my sister and I went to the very same HS and were taught what we were asking her, and her response was, "I don't remember that, but I wouldn't have believed it anyway." ???? These are smart kids from a science family and a good high school! Why would you not believe what you learned in biology class???? A Trumper would accuse us of being "East Coast elites" for F*** sake.

[Codeine]

10. Zoomers have zero in the way of history education.

Teach your children history, because the schools aren’t doing it.

[betsuni]

11. But ... people now have computer machines and can watch documentaries and movies

like "Shindler's List," "The Pianist" -- heck, there were Nazis in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."

The other evening my husband and I were riveted by a documentary about Nazis on TV. It's horrifying and fascinating (how could it happen?). How can anyone not find the Holocaust horrifying and fascinating and want to learn more?

But of course I'm old and there used to be documentaries about Nazis on American TV all the time so I knew about it -- don't even remember if it was covered much in school.

I was young during the Vietnam war and whenever I asked my parents about it they'd change the subject. It certainly wasn't covered in school. Wasn't until a lot of movies about the war came out that I started to do research.

Don't younger people watch movies and documentaries and get curious?

[Tracer]

13. When I was 11...

I was friends with a slightly older boy across the street.

This boy's father had 16mm films of WWII and he and I spent a summer in his basement watching the films.

How shocking for a child to learn about the cruelty of man. I've never forgotten that summer's experience and cannot understand Holocaust deniers.

[RobinA]

14. I Graduated From High School

in 1975 and Vietnam was certainly not covered except as current events. In fact, history never went beyond the end of WW2. I was very curious, so I took a course in the Vietnam War at the local community college. I learned a TON. I also took a class in the Middle East, because we never learned much about that either.

I paid a lot of attention to history in all my grades, because I just thought it as interesting. I have discovered that a lot of people just zoned out in history and social studies. Hence, Trump.

[Trumpocalypse]

15. Damn! My high school had a whole course

about the history of the holocaust. What is wrong with education today?

[Behind the Aegis]

16. Unsurprsing.

Given the primary victims were Jews, most don't give a shit; little has changed. This ignorance is why Holocaust revisionism is becoming more and more mainstream, though outright Holocaust denial still seems to be on the fringes...for now. Of course, the few who do know, some of them have a difficult reconciling their own antisemitism in face of this history, but they manage. Then, there are the hardcore antisemites, they have never changed nor gone away, and now they don't even have to hide in the shadows.

Instagram account ‘organized in antisemitism’ lists Jewish high school students in Northern California county

An Instagram account calls on followers to identify Jewish high school students in Northern California’s Marin County.

The account is associated with the Redwood High School in the city of Larkspur, 13 miles north of San Francisco. It named Jewish students in the county and called on followers to contribute the names of other Jewish students there.

“Redwood students organized in antisemitism,” read the message on redwoodhs_soas, which has since been removed, the Mercury News reported. “We currently composing a google doc of Jews in the district. Hit us up if you want to help.”

Redwood Principal David Sondheim told parents in a letter that the school is “treating this incident as hate-motivated behavior and will discipline any student found to be responsible to the full extent possible, up to and including expulsion.”

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