Almost half of Americans don't know how many Jews died in the Holocaust, AJC survey says

[Behind the Aegis]

Almost half of Americans don’t know how many Jews perished in the Holocaust, according to data from a survey conducted for the American Jewish Committee.

Of the Americans over the age of 18 who were polled, only 53% knew that 6 million Jews died in the Shoah. Another 2% believed fewer than 1 million lost their lives while 11% said more than 12 million died. One out of five said they weren’t sure.

The data on Holocaust knowledge is taken from a larger survey on antisemitism in the U.S. that will be released in February.

“Lacking knowledge can open pathways to trivialization and denial of the Holocaust that also contribute to rising antisemitism,” said AJC CEO Ted Deutch in a statement. “As we mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 78 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, it is imperative that Americans continue to learn about the most documented, planned genocide in modern history — the Nazi extermination of one-third of the Jewish people.”

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Unsurprising, but still quite sad.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. This is scary as hell.

[hlthe2b]

2. I only wish I were surprised. American ignorance (across age groups) is

putting democracy at great risk. But not teaching our young --or limiting what they learn-- is beyond threatening to our future.

[Behind the Aegis]

5. Bingo!

It is the real reason the right attacks education and institutions of education with such fervor. An ignorant populace is easier to subdue and mislead.

[Freethinker65]

3. Honestly, if asked I would have said millions.

Would I have immediately said approximately 6 million Jewish and 5 million others, probably not.

[Igel]

10. Closer to parity. n/t

[Thomas Hurt]

4. WWII has faded into the past too far and too much.

The horror, devastation and inhumanity is not present in culture as it once was. It has faded into the "good old days".

This is one of the reasons why authoritarianism and fascism has been making a come back. The christofascist of today want to keep it that way. Have to prop up your favorite hatreds. You can't be a good fascist without an enemy to hate, blame and scapegoat for your own shortcomings and misfortune.

[Skittles]

6. to be fair

half of Americans couldn't tell you who the VP is

[BigmanPigman]

7. Americans underestimated the deaths by at least 5 million

during 1944. Some things never change.

Few people know that about 17 million likely died, half were Jews.

"2021
January 27 marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp by Red Army troops in 1945. A day of remembrance has existed in Germany since 1996. In 2005, the United Nations declared the date the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust."

"An estimated 17 million people were murdered by the German Nazi regime and their collaborators between 1933 and 1945, according to data published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). The estimates are based on the regime’s own reports as well as demographic studies of population loss during World War II. The latest estimate of the number of homosexual victims is based on research by German historian Alexander Zinn, who carried out extensive research on this group of victims."

"Some of the victims were murdered in Germany: in concentration camps, prisons, during pogroms or even in hospitals. A particularly large number of victims were murdered in Poland and the former Soviet Union. This is where the Nazis had set up extermination camps, which is also where the majority of the Jewish victims were killed by the regime. Nazi troops also shot and killed many civilians in occupied territory, most of them Jews. The Wehrmacht let the majority of Russian prisoners of war starve to death in prison camps."

"Deaths among German political opponents and resistance fighters in areas occupied by allied forces are not included in the graphic. According to the USHMM, their number has not yet to be determined."

https://www.statista.com/chart/24024/number-of-victims-nazi-regime/

[moniss]

8. Another surprising

survey fact would reveal that most Americans under the age of 60 know little about Vietnam other than it took place and was unpopular. Years ago I queried some folks who were born in the '70s as to whether their high schools in the '90's taught about Vietnam and they said no not at all and in fact their US history curriculum pretty much cut off after Hiroshima. A little bit about the Civil Rights era but mainly just the Voting Rights Act and Dr. King and just a couple of days of that.

I have no idea if it has improved since that querie made in the early 2000's but I doubt it given the GQP.

[friend of a friend]

9. Nor do they care.

[spike jones]

11. Holocaust and what is happening today. "How Do You Kill 11 Million People" by Andy Andrews.

“In everything he writes, Andy offers perspective that leaves you seeing your world and your life in a completely different way. He mines history for examples and then applies what he has learned to his readers’ lives...”
“Through the lens of the Holocaust, Andy examines how Hitler was able to get eleven million people to march to their deaths with so little resistance. In short, he lied to them. And, sadly, they believed it. If the truth is what sets us free, we need to ask what it means to live in a society where truth is absent, where we are routinely lied to by politicians of both parties, Wall Street, and the media. What is at stake? Can we survive in such a culture of deception? Our only hope, Andy argues, is an informed citizenry that demands truth at every level—first from themselves and second from their leaders. We must be able to separate fact from fiction, truth from lies, and hold those who lie accountable.
This is a short book. You can literally read it in less than an hour. But don’t be fooled by its size. It’s a little book that could be the start of something very big. It’s a book you will want to read for yourself and then give to others.”
“People are being rounded-up all over the country. The numbers are small and scattered now, but the mechanism is being established. It is vans and buses now, when the cattle cars start screaming by, how loudly will you be singing?”


“The Holocaust resulted neither from a confluence of circumstances beyond human control nor from history’s inexorable march. It happened because ordinary people failed to stop it.”