Study reveals major knowledge gap
A quarter of young Dutch people think the Holocaust is a myth
01/25/2023 10:06 p.m
A study by the Jewish Claims Conference shocks the Netherlands: 23 percent of young people consider the Holocaust to be a misconception or an exaggeration. That is far more than in other countries. “Our worst fears are proving to be justified,” the organization warns.
Almost a quarter of young Dutch people think the Holocaust is a myth or exaggerated. This is the result of a study by Jewish Claims Conference, which was published shortly before the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism. That number — a total of 23 percent of the 2,000 adults aged between 18 and 40 surveyed for the study — is higher than in any other previously surveyed country, it said. The Claims Conference was established after World War II to enforce claims by Jewish survivors against Germany and continues to serve Holocaust survivors and their descendants today.
Many respondents were unaware of the full extent of the Holocaust: 54 percent of all respondents and 59 percent of young Dutch people did not know that six million Jews were murdered. A total of 29 percent believed that two million or fewer Jews were killed during the Holocaust. Among young people, the proportion was even 37 percent.
The study also revealed widespread knowledge gaps in the Netherlands on other facts from the Nazi era. 89 percent of the 2,000 Dutch people surveyed knew Anne Frank – who had hidden from the Nazis with her family in a house in Amsterdam and wrote a diary about her life. However, 27 percent did not know that Frank died in 1945 shortly before the end of the war in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Knowledge about the Holocaust is being lost faster and faster
“Our Netherlands study makes it very clear to us that historical facts are no longer binding, especially among young adults,” said Rüdiger Mahlo, the representative of the Claims Conference in Germany. “Holocaust knowledge and awareness are eroding at a rate that is shocking. Our worst fears are proving to be justified.”
The prevalence of “denials and distortions” is greater than in other countries “that we have studied,” added Claims Conference President Greg Schneider. In the UK and Canada, only about 9 percent of respondents said the Holocaust was an invention or exaggerated, compared to 10 percent in Austria and France.
Minister of Education calls for more commitment in schools
Dutch politicians have also reacted with horror to a study. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he was “shocked”. “We can talk about anything, but it’s important that we agree on the facts.” Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra wrote on Twitter that it was “astonishing and extremely worrying that almost a quarter of Dutch young people are questioning these facts”. Dutch education minister Dennis Wiersma called for “greater commitment” in schools to enable students to “know the facts about the atrocities of World War II”.
Almost 80 years after the end of the Second World War, the Netherlands is still working through the role played by its own population in the persecution of the Jews. In 2021, a Holocaust memorial was dedicated in Amsterdam to the Dutch Jews killed during the war. Many citizens, the police and railway companies actively collaborated with the Nazis during the German occupation.