22% of US millennials haven’t heard of Holocaust, study finds

Over a fifth of millennials in the United States have not heard of or are unsure if they have heard of the Holocaust, a study finds.

The survey, commissioned by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (also known as the Claims Conference), found that many Americans were unaware of basic facts about the Holocaust.

The results were released Thursday, which marks Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. The study includes 1,350 interviews with Americans aged 18 and over.

While 6 million Jews are estimated to have been killed in the Holocaust, 31 percent of all respondents and 41% of millennials, aged 18 to 34, believe that number is 2 million or less, according to the survey.

Forty-five percent of all respondents could not name a concentration camp or ghetto from World War II, and 41% could not identify Auschwitz, a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps.

The study found that the vast majority of respondents support Holocaust education. Ninety-three percent of the respondents said that all students should learn about the Holocaust in school and 80% said it was important to educate about the Holocaust to prevent it from happening again.

Still, 58% of respondents believe that “something like the Holocaust could happen again.”

— JTA