One in five young Americans think the Holocaust is a myth

[TheProle]

On December 5th, for over five hours, lawmakers grilled the presidents of elite universities in a congressional hearing about antisemitism on college campuses. In one of the testiest exchanges a Republican congresswoman, Elise Stefanik, asked whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” violates university rules. It is “context-dependent”, replied Liz Magill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania. Clips of the exchange went viral on X, formerly Twitter. Yad Vashem, a Holocaust museum and research centre, issued a condemnation and stressed the importance of “raising awareness about the history of antisemitism and the Holocaust”.

A new poll from YouGov/The Economist suggests that Yad Vashem has its work cut out. Young Americans—or at least the subset of them who take part in surveys—appear to be remarkably ignorant about one of modern history’s greatest crimes. Some 20% of respondents aged 18-29 think that the Holocaust is a myth, compared with 8% of those aged 30-44 (see chart). An additional 30% of young Americans said they do not know whether the Holocaust is a myth. Many respondents espouse the canard that Jews wield too much power in America: young people are nearly five times more likely to think this than are those aged 65 and older (28% versus 6%).

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/12/07/one-in-five-young-americans-think-the-holocaust-is-a-myth

[Hermit-The-Prog]

1. That is scary -- that's how it could happen again.

[SoFlaBro]

89. This is why I say that despite some of their progressive views, young people still scare the fuck outta me.

They can be colossally stupid about certain topics.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

91. Not stupid; ignorant, which is universal and universally correctable.

[SoFlaBro]

95. Can we trade some of these young Holocaust deniers for hostages held by shitstain Hamas.

[Mariana]

96. Their elders have failed them.

[RubyRose]

2. Frightening!

[sarisataka]

3. Never Again

Only has meaning if you remember what is never supposed to happen again

[raccoon]

30. Yeah, and it already has happened again. In Rwanda and other places.

[bdamomma]

4. Getting

the wrong information from social media. Those who don't know history are deemed to repeat it.

Crap WTF!!!!!! propaganda is rotting people's minds. So sickening.

[TexasDem69]

6. Blame our schools, not social media

[sarisataka]

8. It is possible the schools are not teaching

About the Holocaust because they don't want to appear to be "taking sides"


(mostly)

[ripcord]

42. I visited Dachau when I was 15 with a group of high school students and none of us had any doubts

You could feel the evil in the air, I had a headache when I left. Several people were crying by time we were done, one of the girls was Jewish and held on to my arm so tightly it left bruises.

[bdamomma]

9. Correction:

History and civics not being taught is a factor too.

[Big Blue Marble]

45. This is the real problem.

Our culture is losing touch with our history and by that I mean all history.
History simply has little relevance in a face pace technological society where
everything is about the promises of the future that the past is deemed insignificant..

[TheKentuckian]

49. Parents as well.

Maybe I was a rare case but I got this very young at home.

The schools are scary though.
I'm at a loss at what is being taught at even a par level. At least not in the big picture, some do an outstanding job.

[JustAnotherGen]

5. How are they

Graduating from high school without this basic knowledge?

[TexasDem69]

7. Is it taught in schools?

I don’t recall courses on the Holocaust when I was in school but it’s been a long, long time

[JustAnotherGen]

17. Yep

I had it in the 4th grade and in my Catholic High School. In my district - its a key part of the curriculum along with the 100 years of Jim Crow, and the genocide of indigenous people.

That's what NJ's high property taxes pay for - a well educated population.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

18. They did when i was i school

Graduated high school in 2003. Watched Schindlers list in world history class sophomore year.

[appalachiablue]

54. That's great to know, thanks for posting. Schindler's

List is an excellent movie.

I majored in history which is a scarce field to choose for years and it shows.

My dad was an army officer in combat in Germany in WW2 and at the Liberation of Dachau although he never talked about it. Mom thankfully told us about some of the things he experienced.

[Sympthsical]

65. For us it was Europa Europa

Great movie. We watched it senior year. I think my European History teacher went with that one because it was a bit less graphic than Schindler's List, and it revolved around a Jewish German teenager's efforts to hide and escape, so perhaps he thought it would be more relatable to people our age. It's based on the autobiography of Solomon Perel who, at one point, joined the Hitler Youth while masquerading as a German.

He just died earlier this year at 97. It's a crazy story.

[Behind the Aegis]

68. That is a great movie!

I didn't realize he had passed away.

[ShazzieB]

19. Depends on where you are.

Some states (not nearly enough, imo) require that the Holocaust be taught in public schools:

In the United States, the states of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Wisconsin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_requiring_teaching_of_the_Holocaust

[TexasDem69]

21. All other states need to get on board

[bdamomma]

73. I'm surprised

not to see Massachusetts on the list. Glad to see that RI is on that list.

[Igel]

50. Graduated HS in '77

Yeah, Holocaust.

I remember seeing horrendous pictures of fillings and lampshades.

My students now--I teach HS--get taught about the horrors of fascism. (Not so much about the USSR, which killed more innocents by far and lasted far longer.)

They just memorize for the test and forget. Hey, Nickie Minaj's album dropped today!

They're millimeters away from solipsism. At least the loud ones.

Some are sentient and self-aware.

[H2O Man]

87. Good question!

It wasn't when I was in school, but that was at a time when I had a grandfather, numerous uncles, and lots of friend's fathers etc that fought in WW2, and so were knew. So I never gave much thought to it, because it was something we learned about at home and in the neighborhood. Yet I do not remember covering the Holocaust in school, despite having had some very good teachers.

When I was a little boy, we had a neighbor who had lost his whole family in the Holocaust. He was an artist, and very nice to neighborhood kids. He gave my oldest brother a coin collection, and me a stuffed animal. I taught my kids about him. And from the Elders in our extended family, they learned about the Holocaust and WW2.

I do remember that it seemed like year after year from jr. high on that social studies classes taught about the conquistadors. We learned President Lincoln freed the human beings from slavery, and the Iroquois grew corn, beans, and squash. But not much more on topics that, like the Holocaust should have been studied in school.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

16. A lot of high schools basically just shove them out

My wife is friends with a bunch of teachers. Almost all have quit public schools and gone private. Combination of bad students, absolutely awful parents, and terrible administration who cares more about count day and shoving them out the door at graduation then anything else. They almost all have taken pay cuts, or don't make as much as they would in public, but they enjoy it more. Smaller class sizes, better behaved students, and more involved parents is what a few have told me.

[JustAnotherGen]

24. Our district

Has been infiltrated by Moms 4 Liberty school board members. They don't like these things being taught. But liberals here are holding the line.

[riverbendviewgal]

25. I graduated from my NJ high school in 1965

I do not remember being taught about the Holocaust at all in my American high school. . I did read newspapers and went to the library and learned on my own about the Holocaust.
The Eichmann Trial was held before a special tribunal of the Jerusalem District Court. It began on April 11, 1961. That is when I followed the New York Dailey News every day and watched the news on tv. The newspaper had very graphic photos and articles on what Nazis did to the Jewish people. And how Eichmann ran the gas chambers and my parents never commented on this. I believe that the Holocaust and the Civil Rights era and the assassinations of JFK,MLK, and Robert Kennedy and the Viet Nam war turned me into a very progressive human.

February 1939 Madison Square Garden was filled with 20 thousand American Nazis giving pledge of support to Hitler. Shocking.

I am appalled at how the USA has become so racist. My US High School History teacher predicted this. I can compare him to Howard Zinn.

I pray for America every day.

[JustAnotherGen]

27. I'm friends with the high school teacher

Who has it in his curriculum. He's also on Borough Council. In January we will have a historic all Democratic Council - hasn't happened since 1916.

I was recently elected. The kids in this town are going to have it shoved into their brains.

[riverbendviewgal]

31. Excellent to read this.

This is what American students need to know. The Truth.

[Big Blue Marble]

47. I, too, was in high school in the Sixties and we were not taught about the holocaust.

My mother told me about it when I was eight or nine. I read The Diary Of Anne Frank
and remember seeing the imagery from the camps as a young child. The horror
of the Holocaust was very much part of our lives. it would have been difficult to deny it.

[bdamomma]

76. Difficult to deny

and to say it was a myth. There have been plenty of movies and documentaries about the holocaust.

[Igel]

52. Sometimes it's the luck of the draw.

I graduated in '77 and "DNA" in my bio class was learning that it provided a blueprint and we needed to know that it stood for deoxyribonucleic acid.

RNA? Transcription? At the time they were advanced undergrad/grad topics. But our textbook was from the early-mid '60s and our teacher from the '50s. Knowledge trickles slowly.

In '06 I taught undergrads, university level. They "knew" about the Vietnam war, but their teachers had been horribly wrong. "The most deadly war in history, for civilians and for American soldiers." I stared, sent them to the Internet, and they came back after 20 minutes of classtime--the first 20 results had to be wrong--that their teachers, from Idaho to TX, were wrong. Utterly. Their teachers, in their 40s and 50s, echoed *their* teachers' activism, not their teachers' erudition. Again, knowledge trickles slowly--except in this case there were political considerations.

[marybourg]

53. I don't think it was taught back then. Too fresh. Teaching about the holocaust started

later. Mid-70’s probably.

[Mossfern]

59. We didn't cover the Holocaust in hIgh school (1965 grad- Queens NY)

But taught about Laos Cambodia and Vietnam.
I learned about the Shoah when I noticed the tattoos on my friend's parents arms.
My mother didn't want to talk about it, just as my grandmother didn't want to talk about the pogroms in Ukraine.

[Demobrat]

36. I don't recall it ever being mentioned in school.

I knew about it because I worked part time in a Jewish bakery and saw the numbers tattooed on arms. In my naïveté I asked someone what it was.

Chicago public school system.

[Backseat Driver]

55. Our life insurance man came to the house in the late 50's/early to mid 60s to collect the premiums;

he also had the numbered tattoo on his arm.

[uponit7771]

66. In Texas slaves are called "unwilling workers" or something like that. Very racist schooling

[TwilightZone]

77. The workers reference wasn't Texas's fault. It was the publisher.

https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dont-blame-texas-for-textbooks-slavery-whitewash-for-once-7660887

Slaves were referred to as workers in one of the book's captions. Elsewhere in the book, there are references to slaves and the slave trade.

"In response to a request to see the remainder of chapter 5, where the caption was located, a company spokeswoman demurred. "The book is 955 pages long," she wrote. "In more than a dozen places, there are mentions of enslaved Africans, the slave trade (since this is a geography book there are multiple references to this), the Underground Railway, slavery in the American South and enslavement." But some poking around on the McGraw-Hill website yielded temporary access to an online version of the textbook, which does a bit better job of emphasizing that slaves were, you know, slaves:"

Separately, a group of educators tried to get the slave trade referred to as "involuntary relocation", but the Board of Education rejected it.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/30/texas-slavery-involuntary-relocation/

[LiberalFighter]

10. Texas should not be controlling the content of nationwide history books.

[TexasDem69]

20. Is it?

[TwilightZone]

23. Can't blame Texas for this one.

Texas requires that high school students be taught about the holocaust.

[Bucky]

71. I teach social studies in Texas

We do cover the Holocaust, but we're required to inform the students that it's Hillary's fault

[bamagal62]

44. This!

I taught school in the 80s-90s. We always voted on textbooks. But, we were then told, it didn’t matter because Texas always decided the textbooks we would use. It was Infuriating then. And, now we see the consequences.

[TwilightZone]

74. Texas requires that high school students be taught about the holocaust.

[uponit7771]

67. THIS!!!👆🏿👆🏿👆🏿

[TwilightZone]

75. Texas requires that high school students be taught about the holocaust.

[ripcord]

11. Eisenhower had that all well documented because he was afraid this would happen

Too many young people think asking social media questions is research.

[Takket]

12. this is the result of a decades long relentless assault on our kid's education

book bans
red states undermining curriculums
vouchers
vilifying teachers
don't say gay.......

Holocaust denial-ism is the natural, and intended, result of these attacks on our kids.

[ripcord]

41. You can't just blame read states

Oregon recently removed the reading, writing and math proficiency requirements for high school graduates.

[TheKentuckian]

72. I'd typically leap to the same conclusion but rounding up the usual suspects

doesn't seem to track very well on this.

It seems that some of the most misinformed are the last one would guess.
We are talking California, Oregon, and New York among the worst outcomes here so it isn't just the failings and depravity of the right or Texas run amok at play here by a long shot.

This is well beyond the handy and reflexive answers and not just a right wing generated problem. The data just doesn't support it.

Further, this isn't a just a US issue. The UK is no better, nor shockingly the Dutch. Australia is worse off, if I recall correctly from what I reviewed.

There is a bomb building globally and it is far, far, far from just the Republicans setting it and pretending otherwise is going to be very dangerous.

[BlueIdaho]

13. 20%

So Trump supporters then? We keep finding new ways of identifying the same small crowd of America’s despicables.

[yardwork]

15. But another 30% "aren't sure." That's 50%.

[FHRRK]

14. and how does that % stack up historically?

I would guess 10 to 20% would be the percentage going back 50 years.

Did a bit of research - link to article from almost 10 years ago.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/05/the-world-is-full-of-holocaust-deniers/370870/

Once again, 20% of the people you pass by, .... are fucking ignorant.

[DET]

22. If People Are This Ignorant

I have to wonder if they even know what the Holocaust is.

[bamagal62]

46. The dumbing down of our kids/schools.

Republicans always play the long game. And, here we are.

[bdamomma]

79. The dumbing down

of Americans was happening and still is. People (some) not all are ignorant of facts and history.

[edhopper]

26. Do they have it broken down by region?

[walkingman]

28. Scary and almost unbelievable. As most of the WWII era adults rapidly dies off and nows the

real horrors of fascism the American electorate doesn't seem to be taking it seriously. If this means we elect one in this country that is on us. We will truly be getting the government we deserve and it won't be pretty for us or the world.

[bdamomma]

81. I hope

we don't go down this road of eroding rights, we won't like it. Our adversaries in the world are wishing to see the US suffer.

[Lovie777]

29. 4 in 1 knows it's bullshit............

[Docreed2003]

32. MAUS was banned in some schools...

Shit like that is what leads to these statistics! I'm only 45 and when I was in sixth grade we read "Diary of Anne Frank" and then watched the allied documentary footage showing the absolute horror of the camps. Hiding this history from children only leads to ignorance and social media influencers posting bullshit conspiracies that people eat up because they don't know better. They don't know better because they weren't taught and that's the travesty.

[Mossfern]

61. Maus was required reading

for my kids in our NJ high school.

[patphil]

33. Many respondents espouse the canard that Jews wield too much power in America

That's a typical white supremacist attitude. I would have thought Representative Stefanik would be OK with that, after all, her master, Trump, appears to be.
Remember Charlottsville and those white supremacists chanting, "Jews will not replace us", and Trump refusing to condemn them, saying there were good people on both sides?
I guess the Republicans position on Jews depends on how they want to use the situation.

[TheKentuckian]

38. Is that not the Republican position on all under the sun?

[patphil]

39. That's pretty much their policy: whatever the moment requires.

[mathematic]

57. 27% of black respondents agreed with that, 13% of white.

Antisemitism is not exclusively a white phenomenon, nor a right wing phenomenon. Denying this only allows antisemitism to persist.

Here are the crosstabs:
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_tT4jyzG.pdf

There are some truly dismal things in that survey.

[TexasDem69]

34. I missed it the first time

But the president of Harvard University really said that whether it’s ok to call for the genocide of Jews is “context specific?” She really said that? In what world is calling for the genocide of any group context specific? Isn't that always wrong?

[TheKentuckian]

35. 20% say myth, 30% aren't sure, and we probably

have some that are fans.

That equals some neck high shit.

I'm looking at Claims Conference survey right now that says 11% of Millennials and Z actually believe it was the Jews that caused the Holocaust so add that flaming piece of dung to the heap too.

This has to be confronted in no uncertain terms and turned around right now.

[DonCoquixote]

37. Our churches have a hand in this

because they know they can choke schools out, either by cutting funding or outright violence. If the Holocaust was taught, then light would be shown on how many churches not only turned a blind eye to it, but outright encouraged it.

Just as many of them do so now.

And please, don't put forth that nice Nun, or Pope Francis, or that nice minister, because while they serve a church, they are, at the very least, helping those who want to KILL.

[TexasDem69]

40. The churches have a hand in the ignorance of American students?

Do you have any support for that bullshit statement? Ever heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer. Do you think he turned a blind eye?

[DonCoquixote]

94. ever see Fundy churches try to cur educations funds

ever see churches teach that all jews are damned?

For every one good clergy, there is at least one that fights schools.

https://newrepublic.com/article/166970/supreme-court-public-schools-religion

https://newrepublic.com/article/166970/supreme-court-public-schools-religion

[Cha]

43. Dumb Fucks Purposely or otherwise

[DemocraticPatriot]

48. Did we stop teaching history in high school? WHEN ???!!!

I graduated in 1981. During my education I had one year of required US History in Jr. High, and another year of required US History in High school, as well as a required semester of civics....


I don't know what happened after that......


I have been a life-long self-student of history, it has always been a favorite topic of mine,
especially the US wars....

As such, I got "easy A's" in those topics in school--- even took a year of it in college to raise my GPA, although it was not required...

When I was young, I was most interested in the revolutionary and civil wars,
but later in life more interested in World War II.....

World War I is a little blank, but when I read about it, I was somewhat surprised to learn about the atrocities committed by the Germans, in their early offensives (I thought that was a WW2 thing, but it seems not entirely

Holocaust Denial among the young? A lack of history education, and bad social apps are to blame...

[Texasgal]

51. Wow..

That's just damn sad. It's worrisome what is happening to our young people. I am at a loss for words.

[keithbvadu2]

56. Some people deny the Holocaust.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142813132

Books on Holocaust should be balanced with 'opposing' views, school leader tells teachers

(OP comment) --- I have no words over this. Now we're supposed to have Holocaust deniers and the Neo-Nazi viewpoint in classroom? What has happened to my country?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eisenhower wanted the Holocaust and death camps thoroughly documented because he knew there would be these evil scum who would try to deny it.

Yet Trump has his 6MWE and Camp Auschwitz followers. That's anti-denial in his own camp. (6 Million Wasn't Enough)

[Demobrat]

60. When I was in my early twenties

I worked for a German man who insisted that the Holocaust was Jewish propaganda.
But I’ve seen the tattoos, I said.
They put them there themselves.
I’ve seen films of the concentration camps.
They’re all fake.

I saw him as someone who just could not accept that his people had done such a terrible thing. Now I see it differently. Now I see plain old anti semitism.

[keithbvadu2]

58. Some right wingers deny the Holocaust. Others openly brag about it.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029494753

Some right wingers deny the Holocaust. Others openly brag about it. Both are scum.

The Trumpsters marching in Charlottesville were yelling about the ovens ready for the Jews again.

“We killed six million Jews the last time,” he answered. “Eleven million is nothing.”

[DFW]

62. ""Context-dependent?"

I’m a non-Jewish Penn alum, and I think she should be fired for that remark alone! She should have just said, “of course, it does,” and spared herself-and the school-some unnecessary embarrassment. No wonder some big donors are backing out. “Give us your money fast, in case you’re Jewish and someone wants to kill you.”

[DFW]

86. Looks like someone else gave her the hint!! n/t

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

63. A lot depends on where and when you went to high school.

And what adults were around you then. Personally, I have never seen the concentration camp tattoos, but I don't doubt they exist.

Overall, history is very poorly taught in many of our public schools. Textbooks leave out a lot and the teachers don't know any better.

I graduated high school in 1965, and the year I had World History, my first teacher (I changed to a different class second semester) had certain facts wrong. I didn't hesitate to speak up, and he was honest enough to double check and the next day in class say that I was right.

Second semester, the teacher had to announce to the class about three weeks in, that Poindexter was not included in the grading curve. I was getting 100% on all the quizzes and tests, and the class norm was for the top grade to be maybe 80%. That teacher was grateful to have me in the class, but wasn't about to punish the other students for my over-achieving. Good for him.

Oh, and because I'd decided to graduate in three years instead of four, I wound up being a sophomore in the junior honors English class. Several years later I learned that I was something of a legend at my school.

Now you know why you're glad you didn't go to high school with me.

[Behind the Aegis]

64. This isn't at all surprising to me.

Has anyone ever noticed that most, if not all, Holocaust denial revolves around what happened to the Jews? Funny that.

[DFW]

69. It's surprising to me

After talking to yioung people in the East, the South, and the West in recent years, their knowledge of history is so scant, I would be amazed to hear that as many as four fifths of Americans under 25 had ever heard of the Holocaust at all, much less that they accept it as accurate history.

[Bucky]

70. Sad, but still better than the moon's numbers

https://www.voanews.com/a/usa_millions-still-believe-1969-moon-landing-was-hoax/6172262.html

...or, maybe not...

[bucolic_frolic]

78. I do not ever recall the holocaust being mentioned in school or college

Though it was surely mentioned in text books in college history courses.

I did learn about it as a child from TV documentaries on WWII. It was very frightening and caused loss of sleep. No context was given by my parents who had lived through the era. They only parented what was taught in church, which wasn't much.

Famous phrase history is written by the winners. We ignore other de facto genocides. Almost seems like it's part of the human condition. Or inhuman condition.

[no_hypocrisy]

80. I believe they're ignorant.

I know a family in northern NJ. Their parents immigrated here from Germany in the Twenties. And had a hard time with the community comparing them to Nazis, etc., even though they weren't.

Their son married and had a son. The son is now 44 and works for UPS. In the warehouse, he was approached by some Proud Boys, who were impressed with his German heritage and "befriended" him. They told him to be proud that he was German because of a leader. And they told him about how Hitler "saved Germany" with his policies for military might, putting starving Germans back to work, etc.

And this son wanted to share his excited and newfound pride in his family heritage with his family. He texted a photo of Hitler to his uncle (another immigrant from Germany), who flipped out.

The son couldn't understand why everyone was so upset. He had no idea about the concentration camps, the showers, the discrimination against Jews/gypsies/gays/religious Christians/intellectuals, and more. Granted his father should have said something when he was growing up, but he really had no idea.

[Patton French]

82. I simply refuse to believe that. NT

[TheProle]

84. A lot of Germans did as well

[NickB79]

83. I recall reading Anne Frank in 7th grade English class, 1991 or thereabouts

And my grandfather fought in WWII Germany, so he was a source of knowledge as well.

Maybe that's the problem: the generation that actually fought the Nazis is largely gone, and their great-grandchildren never heard WHY they fought in the first place?

[MagickMuffin]

85. Hit paywall, How many people were surveyed?

Since I can’t access the article I would like to know the answer to my question.


How many were surveyed?

[flvegan]

88. Soooo...those respondents are idiots. And?

They'd also be offended by that response, which makes this even more...funny?

[Silent3]

90. The sick irony is the very same people who say the Holocaust didn't happen...

...are the ones with all of the personality traits to make it happen again if they could.

[Captain Stern]

92. I wish this surprised me. It doesn't.

We live in a place and time where a significant amount of people believe:

The earth is flat.

Vaccines are bad for you.

People are abducted by aliens.

There was no moon landing.

There's a world-wide ring of pedophiles controlling governments and media.

Contrails are mind-control chemicals.

I could continue this list, but it would be too depressing.

We're all living in the same time, but not the same place. I really hope things in other countries aren't as bad as they are here. But, here, in the United States, it seems outright lunacy is given equal legitmacy as things that are true.

[shrike3]

93. Social media partly to blame, I imagine.

The notion that the earth is flat made a comeback because of social media. Lately, I heard that aliens are shutting off nuclear plants (a few have gone off-line in recent years) because an explosion at one would rend the time/space continuum. The latter is from youtube. Wouldn't surprise me if some people are coming across antisemitic tropes and believing them.

[BannonsLiver]

97. What are their screen names?