The philosopher George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
But no one could have predicted that it would take less than 100 years for us to forget one of the most heinous atrocities committed against one people group in modern history — the Holocaust.
A recent survey on Holocaust knowledge in America unveiled a profound and disturbing ignorance among young adults about the attempted genocide of the Jewish people, according to U.K. outlet The Guardian.
[YouGov Survey] Top groups that believe the Holocaust didn’t happen:
-Democrats: 10% (vs 5% of Republicans)
-Black people: 13% (vs 5% white people)
-City residents: 14% (vs 3% rural people)
-Young people: 20% (vs 0% of age 65+)Jewish leftists are gonna have a really hard time… pic.twitter.com/P1uq0VHehD
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 8, 2023
Commissioned by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the survey polled 1,000 adults aged 18-39 nationwide about basic facts concerning the Nazi extermination of 6 million European Jews. The results were alarming.
Nearly two-thirds of young Americans do not even know that six million Jews died in the Holocaust. Over a third believe 2 million or less perished — a staggering underestimate.
Almost half of millennial and Gen Z adults aged between 18 and 39 could not name a single concentration camp or ghetto — emblems of Nazi brutality and the infrastructure of genocide.
Even more shocking numbers of young adults have bought into dangerous Holocaust denialism and distortion, the survey revealed.
Nearly a quarter believe the Holocaust has been exaggerated or are not even sure it happened. One in eight have never heard of it at all.
Over half have seen Nazi symbols promoted on social media.
In addition, 28 percent in the 18-29 demographic believe “Jews have too much power in America,” according to the poll.
The survey was the first to drill down to the state level to determine beliefs about the Holocaust.
It ranked states from highest to lowest Holocaust knowledge based on residents’ awareness of basic facts. Wisconsin scored highest, while Florida, Mississippi and Arkansas ranked lowest nationwide.
Almost one in five New Yorkers blamed the Jews as the cause of the very Holocaust that destroyed their ancestors. Louisiana, Tennessee, Montana and other states display similar shameful statistics.
Gideon Taylor, president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, said, “The results are both shocking and saddening, and they underscore why we must act now while Holocaust survivors are still with us to voice their stories.”
“This needs to serve as a wake-up call to us all, and as a road map of where government officials need to act,” Taylor added.
A large portion of the blame for this lack of education can be placed on educational institutions, which have pushed Marxist ideologies, including Holocaust denial.
The shameful testimonies of the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT, as reported by this week are clear evidence of the culture being promoted in these so-called elite institutions.
But the memories of Americans are even shorter than that.
Last month, the hashtag #lettertoamerica went viral on TikTok as thousands of Tiktokers encouraged their millions of followers to read Osama bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to America,” claiming it revealed “truths” about Israel and Middle East foreign policy they aren’t taught in school, according to The National Desk.
Warning: This video contains language that may be offensive to some people.
Thousands of TikTokers posted videos today saying they read Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America” on his goals behind the 9/11 attacks and how it opened their eyes to terrorism as a form of resistance.
The pro-Hamas left is parody of itself.pic.twitter.com/wtleEeVzup
— Michael P Senger (@michaelpsenger) November 16, 2023
It took a bunch of smirking elite university presidents’ blatantly admitting to Congress that calling for the genocide of Jews only violates the rules of conduct of their university depending on the “context” to bring attention to the Marxist ideology and historical whitewashing happening to young people in educational institutions, leading to threats of pulled back donations, according to CNN.
I fail to see how her comments could have been “misinterpreted”. She literally said that whether calling for the genocide of a particular group of people is wrong “depends on the context”. So I ask President Gay and all of the students and faculty of Harvard, under what… https://t.co/cr39N8Eqg5
— Andy Q. Zhou (@andyquanzhou) December 7, 2023
Penn president Magill, Harvard president Gay:
Depends on the “context” in which campus calls for genocide against Jews are made to determine whether the call for genocide constitutes bullying behavior. pic.twitter.com/2iFIyegLUe— KC Johnson (@kcjohnson9) December 5, 2023
But that will not be enough to reverse the damage.
Let us pray it will not take another attack on American soil before American youth realize the depravity of the positions they have adopted.
