Survey shows lack of Holocaust awareness in the Netherlands read full article at worldnews365.me

The survey commisioned by the New York-based Convention on Jewish Materials Claims In opposition to Germany discovered that the variety of respondents who consider the Holocaust is a fantasy was increased than in any of the opposite 5 nations beforehand surveyed, with 23 % of adults below 40 and 12 % of all respondents believing the Holocaust is a fantasy or the variety of Jews killed has been significantly exaggerated.

It additionally discovered that 54% of all respondents — and 59% of these aged below 40 — have no idea that 6 million Jews have been murdered. Some 29 % consider that the determine is 2 million or fewer.

“It’s terrible,” Max Arpels Lezer, a Dutch survivor whose mom was murdered at Auschwitz, instructed The Related Press.

“They should know their own national history — that so many Jewish people were murdered during the Holocaust and I think it’s a shame,” he added.

Of the 140,000 Jews who lived within the Netherlands earlier than World Warfare II, 102,000 have been murdered within the Holocaust. An additional 2,000 Jewish refugees within the Netherlands additionally have been killed within the genocide.

Regardless of that grim historical past, 53% of these surveyed don’t cite the Netherlands as a rustic the place the Holocaust happened. Solely 22 % of all respondents have been in a position to determine Westerbork, a transit camp within the jap Netherlands the place Jews, together with Anne Frank, have been despatched earlier than being deported. The camp is now a museum and commemoration website.

The survey discovered that 60% of respondents haven’t visited the Anne Frank Home museum in Amsterdam — the canalside constructing the place Anne, her sister, dad and mom and 4 different Jews hid from the Dutch capital’s Nazi occupiers from 1942 till August 1944 once they have been found and subsequently deported.

Anne and her sister, Margot, died within the Bergen-Belsen focus camp. Of the eight Jews who hid within the secret annexe in Amsterdam, solely Anne’s father, Otto, survived the Holocaust.

Eddo Verdoner, the Netherlands’ Nationwide Coordinator on Combating Antisemitism, stated in an announcement it was “shocking to see that 23% of Millennials and Gen Z believe the Holocaust is either a myth or has been exaggerated.”

He stated the discovering “points to a growing gap in knowledge and awareness. We must do better in our schools to fight Holocaust distortion wherever we find it.”

Greater than three-quarters of these surveyed — 77% — stated that it is very important proceed to show in regards to the Holocaust, partially so it doesn’t occur once more, whereas 66% agree that Holocaust schooling needs to be obligatory at school.

“Survey after survey, we continue to witness a decline in Holocaust knowledge and awareness. Equally disturbing is the trend towards Holocaust denial and distortion,” Claims Convention President Gideon Taylor stated in an announcement.

“To address this trend, we must put a greater focus on Holocaust education in our schools globally. If we do not, denial will soon outweigh knowledge, and future generations will have no exposure to the critical lessons of the Holocaust.”

Solely half of respondents stated they supported current speeches by Dutch leaders to acknowledge and apologize for the nation’s failure to guard Jews within the Holocaust. The quantity dropped to 44% amongst respondents aged below 40.

Three years in the past, Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized for the failure of officers within the Nazi-occupied nation throughout World Warfare II to do extra to forestall the deportation and homicide of Jews. In 2021, he opened a Holocaust monument in Amsterdam. On the time, Rutte referred to as the period “a black page in the history of our country” and stated the monument additionally has an vital modern message “in our time when anti-Semitism is never far away. The monument says – no, it screams – be vigilant.”

A Holocaust museum is scheduled to open close to the monument subsequent 12 months.

The survey, with a margin of error of two%, concerned interviews with 2,000 Dutch adults aged 18 and over throughout the Netherlands in December. The Claims Convention negotiates restitution for Holocaust victims.