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Two-thirds of US millennials do not know what Auschwitz is, Holocaust study finds out

When the Americans were asked to identify what Auschwitz is, at least 41 percent of the adults and 66 percent of millennials could not give a correct response.

BY NAMRATA TRIPATHI

UPDATED JAN 20, 2020

At least two-thirds of millennials in the United States do not know what Auschwitz is, according to a study released on Holocaust Memorial Day. The study also concluded that the knowledge of the Holocaust — the genocide which killed over 6 million Jews during World World II — is increasingly fading among Americans, particularly those within the age group of 18 to 34.

The study stated that twenty-two percent of millennials, during the survey, said that they have not heard of the Holocaust, while some said that were not sure whether they heard of it or not. The Denver Post reported that the number was nearly twice the percentage of the American adults as a whole who also said that they had not heard of the Holocaust.

The survey, which interviewed 1,350 American adults in February, was conducted by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

A visitor stands next to a stone that refers to the former Auschwitz concentration camp at the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism following a commemoration ceremony on January 29, 2018 in Berlin, Germany. (Getty Images)

When Americans were asked to identify what Auschwitz is, at least 41 percent of the adults and 66 percent of millennials could not give a correct response. Auschwitz was one of the largest concentration camp or extermination camp used to kill Jews during the Holocaust.

According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, at least 1.3 million people were deported to the camp, which was run by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland, from 1940 to 1945, and 1.1 million of them were killed.

The study stated that there was a low awareness of the Holocaust in multiple countries, except for Germany, where the Holocaust took place.

Syrian refugee stands in front of the entrance to the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial to commemorate victims of the Holocaust on January 26, 2018 near Weimar, Germany. (Getty Images)

Only 5 to 6 percent of the American adults knew that Jews were killed in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. These were the locations at least 90 percent of the local Jewish populations were killed, according to the study.

The study also stated that 37 percent of U.S. adults knew that Jews from Poland were killed; Poland was home to 3.5 million Jewish Holocaust victims.

Reports state that the poll conducted has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.