Poll: Majority of Americans say something like the Holocaust could happen again

A majority of U.S. adults said something like the Holocaust could happen again, according to a new poll released on Thursday for Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Study found that 58 percent of Americans believe that something like the Holocaust could happen again.

The poll also found that 70 percent of those surveyed believe that fewer people seem to care about the Holocaust as much as they used to.

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The study, released on Thursday by The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, studied the awareness of American adults and millennials about the events of the Holocaust.

It found that there were significant age gaps in knowledge about the Holocaust, with 22 percent of millennials saying they haven’t heard or were not sure if they have heard of the Holocaust, compared to 11 percent for all U.S. adults.

Thirty-one percent of all adults and 41 percent of millennials believe 2 million Jews or fewer were killed during the Holocaust. The actual number is estimated to be 6 million.

Almost half of millennials polled — 49 percent — and 45 percent of all U.S. adults were unable to identify one of more than 40,000 concentration camps or ghettos in Europe used by Nazi Germany.

While 41 percent of all U.S. adults were able to identify Auschwitz, two-thirds of millennials polled — 66 percent — could not identify the infamous death camp.

The survey also found that most believe there is still strong anti-Semitic sentiment in the United States today, more than 70 years after the Holocaust. Sixty-eight percent of U.S. adults said anti-Semitism exists today and 34 percent said there are many neo-Nazis currently present in the U.S.

Anti-Semitic incidents in the United States increased by 57 percent in 2017, according to a February report from the Anti-Defamation League. 

On Wednesday, President Trump declared April 12–19 to be Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust to honor the victims of Nazi persecution.

“We have a responsibility to convey the lessons of the Holocaust to future generations, and together as Americans, we have a moral obligation to combat antisemitism, confront hate and prevent genocide,” Trump said in a statement.

A vast majority of respondents — 93 percent — believe all students should learn about the Holocaust in school, and 80 percent said it’s important to teach so it does not happen again.

The survey was conducted by Schoen Consulting from Feb. 23 to 27 with a randomly selected demographically representative sample of 1,350 Americans. The margin of error is 3 percentage points.