
Nearly two-thirds of US adults unaware 6m Jews killed in the Holocaust – study - bmcn2020
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/16/holocaust-us-adults-study
======
thanatos519
Nearly nine-tenths of US adults are probably unaware that 20m Russian soliders
died in WWII.

~~~
zimpenfish
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Human_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Human_losses_by_country)
has military deaths for the Soviet Union at between 8 and 11M - bad but some
way short of 20M.

~~~
asimjalis
Who are you going to believe? An anonymous poster on Wikipedia or an anonymous
poster on HN?

~~~
zimpenfish
The anonymous poster(s) on Wikipedia do include links to sources, including,
e.g.,
[http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/SovietLosses.pd...](http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/SovietLosses.pdf)
which has the 11M estimate and seems reasonably well researched.

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glaucon
I'm hesitant to undermine the substance of the report but when it's mentioned
"Six out of 10 respondents in Texas could not name a single concentration camp
or ghetto" my first thought was to ask what other facts might we be surprised
to hear were unknown to the same group ? For more than half of that group to
not know the name of any concentration is hardly ideal but if the same
proportion of people were unable to give you a coherent summary of the events
of the Second World War it's a lot less significant.

By contrast the parts of the report which touch on "constructed facts" (e.g.
"Jews caused the holocaust") are potentially more troubling. They too might be
due to ignorance (Q: "Did the Jew cause the holocaust ?", A:"Errrh, Yes ?")
but equally could be due to empty vessels being filled with something nasty.

~~~
082349872349872
I couldn't find the survey itself, neither at [http://www.claimscon.org/news-
media/publications/](http://www.claimscon.org/news-media/publications/) nor
[http://www.claimscon.org/news-media/](http://www.claimscon.org/news-media/) .
Schoen Consulting doesn't trivially appear in a search.

69% for france, 58% for austria (millenial and gen Z respondents).
Interestingly, the french and austrians both modally respond that there are
"few" neo nazis in their countries, but "a great deal or many" in the US. The
surveys were taken close to 27 January, so I hope those perceptions mostly
reflect Charlottesville.

80% of respondents in all three countries thought it should be taught.

~~~
zimpenfish
This seems to be the survey summary - [http://www.claimscon.org/millennial-
study/](http://www.claimscon.org/millennial-study/) \- with breakouts like
[http://www.claimscon.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/NO-
WATER...](http://www.claimscon.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/NO-WATERMARK-
State-by-State-Executive-Summary-Millennial-US-
Study-9.10.2020-EMBARGOED_added-language.pdf) and per-state breakouts like
[http://www.claimscon.org/wp-
content/uploads/2020/08/Millenni...](http://www.claimscon.org/wp-
content/uploads/2020/08/Millennial-Holocaust-Survey-KANSAS-
TOPLINE-8.11.20.pdf) which gives you the script (although nothing more than
percentages for the responses.)

------
082349872349872
Could we please have a title edit?

As of writing, it's titled: "Nearly two-thirds of US _young_ adults unaware 6m
Jews killed in the Holocaust"

"According to survey of adults 18-39 ..."

~~~
ploika
Surely someone in their thirties is just an adult, not a young adult.

~~~
kubanczyk
The article does not include US adults aged 40+ and it's explicit about it. It
is just misinformation to widen the claim to two-thirds of all the US adults.

~~~
082349872349872
Even the two-thirds unaware is slightly widened.

From [http://www.claimscon.org/wp-
content/uploads/2020/08/Millenni...](http://www.claimscon.org/wp-
content/uploads/2020/08/Millennial-Holocaust-Survey-KANSAS-
TOPLINE-8.11.20.pdf) (thanks, zimpenfish!) page 5, the question and responses
were:

9\. Approximately how many Jews were killed during the Holocaust? Please
select from the following list:

    
    
        25,000      2%  :
        100,000     3%  :
        1 million   4%  :
        2 million  13%  #:
        6 million  41%  ####
        20 million 10%  #
        Not sure   27%  ##;
    

of which 6 million, even including "not sure", is clearly the modal result.

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iron0013
Almost every comment in this thread seems to be some variation of either “So
what if a lot of jews died—a lot of other people died in the holocaust too ya
know!”, or “So what if a lot of people died in the Holocaust—a lot of people
died in communist Russia too ya know!”.

I find this kind of whataboutism on this topic to be extremely gross and
creepy.

------
mamon
Even less people know that the total number of casualties of WW II was about
70 million. Many people in the West are under impression that WW II was all
about Jews. It wasn't. Even Holocaust wasn't solely about Jews, as they were
also people of other nationalities killed in death camps.

~~~
watwut
Holocaust is by definition only about Jews. Holocaust is not about all the
people who died in camps nor only people who died in camps. It is specifically
word for genocide of Jews during WWII.

~~~
DanBC
There isn't international agreement on the definition of Holocaust.

[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introducti...](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-
to-the-holocaust)

> Holocaust, Hebrew Shoʾah (“Catastrophe”), Yiddish and Hebrew Ḥurban
> (“Destruction”), the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million
> Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by NaziGermany and
> its collaborators during World War II. The Germans called this “the final
> solution to the Jewish question.” Yiddish-speaking Jews and survivors in the
> years immediately following their liberation called the murder of the Jews
> the Ḥurban, the word used to describe the destruction of the First Temple in
> Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 bce and the destruction of the Second
> Temple by the Romans in 70 ce. Shoʾah (“Catastrophe”) is the term preferred
> by Israelis and the French, most especially after Claude Lanzmann’s
> masterful 1985 motion picture documentary of that title. It is also
> preferred by people who speak Hebrew and by those who want to be more
> particular about the Jewish experience or who are uncomfortable with the
> religious connotations of the word Holocaust. Less universal and more
> particular, Shoʾah emphasizes the annihilation of the Jews, not the totality
> of Nazi victims.

Versus

[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introducti...](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-
to-the-holocaust)

> The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of
> six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies and collaborators.
> Holocaust is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire." The Nazis,
> who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were
> "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien
> threat to the so-called German racial community.

> During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other
> groups because of their perceived racial and biological inferiority: Roma
> (Gypsies), people with disabilities, some of the Slavic peoples (Poles,
> Russians, and others), Soviet prisoners of war, and Black people. Other
> groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds,
> among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals.

~~~
watwut
The two links are identical, the first one is likely wrong.

The linked article focuses on Jews and seems to define Holocaust itself as Jew
issue - while trying to make sure reader knows that is not the only atrocity
that was going on at the time. I think that the other groups being mentioned
too is not to define Holocaust through their murder, but to not make
impression it was just that.

The first quote is confusing, because it simultaneously counts in "and
millions of others" while also saying "The Germans called this “the final
solution to the Jewish question.”". And then turning again to say that it
represents totality of victims and supposedly Sho'ah should be word. I have
never seen Shoʾah being used in English language. I have seen that in France,
but it was in French language.

------
Measter
And probably even less aware of the other 11 million people murdered by the
Nazis in their camps.

------
bzb5
Stalin killed over 20 million, Mao almost 80 million. How many adult Americans
know that?

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aaron695
How many know the kill count of Cambodia under Pol Pot?

It's more recent and after the "Never again"

The entire propaganda behind the Holocaust is so we don't repeat it, yet no
one cares when we do.

So I'm a little lost on why we should care? Will this survey help the Rohingya
people today?

~~~
mola
Why shouldn't you care? You obviously think a genocide is a big injustice.
Your frustrations with injustices cause you to belittle another injustice and
even call the actual act of rememberance "propoganda".

People should care, about both examples of human atrocities, the lesson should
be universal, but it's up to us to fight for that. Belittling the holocaust
doesn't do anything to help the fight for this cause. if anything, it hurts
it.

~~~
zaro
> Belittling the holocaust doesn't do anything to help the fight for this
> cause. if anything, it hurts it.

Theoreytically that might be true. The fact is that today 70 years after the
event, and several other genocides the amount ot attention all these other
genocides that happened is miniscule compared to the attention that holocoust
gets.

So there is clearly something wrong, in the whole "let's not allow genocide
happen again by remebering holocaut" story.

~~~
watwut
Holocaust happened here and was done mainly by western country. It was very
much result of western ideologies. It was also successor of history of pogroms
and antisemitism that existed in Europe. Europe still have some of people who
did lived through it. The movements that made holocaust happen and their
ideologies still exist and are alive in Europe and in western countries.

America is quite close culturally, literally fought in that war, literally
fought a lot in that war because Germany was threat to America too. America
did not had just few units in WWII, it was major player.

It would not be surprising for history of "us" and politics of "us" be more
prominent in western countries then history that happens in different
countries. Afaik, in Cambodia, they do talk about their genocide and have
museums of it.

~~~
zaro
>Holocaust happened here and was done mainly by western country

I know it will sound very controversial, but take it notch further and you
will see it not so much because was done by western countries. Western
countries have done plenty of genocides. It is because it was done to white
people .

>The movements that made holocaust happen and their ideologies still exist and
are alive in Europe and in western countries.

Actually Hitler drew a lot of inspiration from USA and its eugenics attempts.

> Afaik, in Cambodia, they do talk about their genocide and have museums of
> it.

20 something year old from Cambodia, have no clue who Paul Pot is. Speaking
from personal experience with people from Cambodia.

