While ceremonies were held worldwide on Sunday to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day, a study commissioned by a Jewish advocacy group shows many millennial Canadians lack even a basic knowledge of Holocaust history.
The survey, which was conducted by Schoen Consulting on behalf of the Azrieli Foudation and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, found more than half of people polled between the ages of 18 and 34 couldn’t name a single concentration camp.
The margin of error for the study was +/-3 per cent.
More than 20 per cent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 34 said they hadn’t heard of the Holocaust or were unsure if they had heard about it.
A quarter of all Canadians said they believe substantially less than six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, while another quarter said they were unsure how many Jews lost their lives.
The poll follows a similar survey in the United States, which found similar levels of ignorance about the Holocaust.
“When we heard about the first Claims Conference study by Schoen in the U.S., we were keen to know how we were doing in Canada,” said Azrieli Foundation Chair and CEO Naomi Azrieli. “I was shocked and disappointed to see the Canadian results. Clearly there are gaps in our education system that must be filled, because as it stands now, as a society, we are not preparing the next generation to learn from the past.”
