Most people believe a genocide of Jews could happen today, multi-country survey finds
Claims Conference poll exposes a global trend of fading knowledge about basic facts of the Holocaust, with almost half of French young adults saying they’ve never heard of the term

A majority of people in seven countries believe a mass genocide against Jewish people similar to the Holocaust could happen today, according to a survey published by The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
The report — which surveyed people in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Germany, Poland, Hungary and Romania — also exposed a global trend of fading knowledge of basic facts about the Holocaust, the Claims Conference said.
It showed that almost half of young adults in France don’t even know what the Holocaust is.
The report was published ahead of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27. Data was collected from a representative sample of one thousand adults in each country in November 2023.
Some 76 percent of people in the United States said they thought another Holocaust could happen, followed by the UK at 69%, France at 63%, Austria at 62%, Germany at 61%, Poland at 54%, and Hungary at 52%. In Romania, 44% said they thought such a scenario was possible.
The survey found that large swaths of the population do not know that six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, and significant minorities of 18% to 28% in each country think two million or fewer Jews were killed.
Across countries, a sizable share of the population does not believe the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust has been accurately described, the report said. People in the 18-29 age range are most likely to believe that the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust has been exaggerated.
“The alarming gaps in knowledge, particularly among younger generations, highlight an urgent need for more effective Holocaust education,” said Gideon Taylor, president of the Claims Conference. “The fact that a significant number of adults cannot identify basic facts — such as the 6 million Jews who perished — is deeply concerning.”

In France, one in five adults said that they had not heard or weren’t sure if they had heard of the Holocaust prior to the survey. That was an outlier — in all other countries, less than 6% hadn’t heard of it.
The lack of knowledge was starker among young adults aged 18-29, with a staggering 46%, compared to 15% in Romania, 14% in Austria, and 12% in Germany saying they hadn’t heard about it.
When asked to name Nazi concentration camps, 48% of Americans could not name a single one of the more than 40,000 camps established during World War II. Overall, a quarter of all respondents across countries could not name a single camp or ghetto.
Holocaust denial and distortion is also common, with Americans and Hungarians most likely to report that Holocaust denial is common in their countries.
On a more positive note, there is overwhelming support for Holocaust education. Across all countries surveyed, 90% or more adults believe it is important to continue teaching about the Holocaust, in part so it does not happen again, the report says.
“It is powerful to see that a majority of all people polled across all countries in this index not only agree that Holocaust education is important, but want to continue teaching the Holocaust in schools,” said Matthew Bronfman, the head of the team that commissioned the report. “Now our task is clear; we must take this mandate and make it happen.”