Surveys show a lack of Holocaust awareness in the Netherlands. WGN Radio 720

The Hague, The Netherlands (AP) — The Jewish group that commissioned a survey on Holocaust awareness in the Netherlands said Wednesday that the results showed a “disturbing lack of awareness of key historical facts about the Holocaust” and said it wanted to do better in the country. It was the home of the diary Anne Frank and her family.

The survey, commissioned by the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, found that the number of respondents who believed the Holocaust to be a myth was higher than any of the other five previously surveyed countries. More than any country, 23% of adults under 40 and 12% of all respondents believe the Holocaust is a myth or the number of Jews killed is greatly exaggerated.

We also found that 54% of all respondents and 59% under the age of 40 were unaware that 6 million Jews were murdered. About 29% believe this figure is below her 2 million.

Dutch survivor Max Arpels Leather, whose mother was murdered in Auschwitz, told the Associated Press:

“They should know their country’s history. It’s a shame that so many Jews were killed in the Holocaust,” he added.

Of the 140,000 Jews living in Holland before World War II, 102,000 were killed in the Holocaust. In addition he killed 2,000 Jewish refugees in the genocide in Holland.

Despite its tragic history, 53% of those surveyed did not name the Netherlands as the country where the Holocaust took place. Of all respondents, only 22% were able to identify Westerbork, a transit camp in the eastern Netherlands to which Jews, including Anne Frank, were sent before being deported. The camp is now a museum and memorial.

The survey found that 60% of respondents have never visited the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam. The building along the canal where Anne, her sister, her parents, and her four other Jews hid from the Nazi occupiers of the Dutch capital from 1942 until her discovery in August 1944 am. then forcibly deported.

Anne and her sister Margot died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Of her eight Jews, who were hiding in a secret annex in Amsterdam, only Anne’s father, Otto, survived the Holocaust.

Eddo Verdoner, the Dutch National Coordinator for Fighting Anti-Semitism, said in a statement: “It is shocking that 23% of millennials and Gen Z believe the Holocaust was a myth or exaggeration. I did.”

The findings “show a widening gap in knowledge and awareness. We must do better in schools to combat the Holocaust distortion wherever it is.”

More than three-quarters (77%) of those surveyed said it was important to keep them informed about the Holocaust. This is also to prevent the Holocaust from happening again. 66% agree that Holocaust education should be compulsory in schools.

“Equally alarming is the trend toward Holocaust denial and distortion,” said Gideon Taylor, president of the Council of Claims, in a statement. .

“To counter this trend, schools around the world need to place a greater emphasis on Holocaust education. you won’t be able to.”

Only half of respondents said they supported recent speeches by Dutch leaders admitting and apologizing for the Netherlands’ failure to protect Jews during the Holocaust. Among respondents under the age of 40, that number dropped to 44%.

Three years ago, Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized to officials in Nazi-occupied countries for not doing more to prevent the deportation and killing of Jews during World War II. In 2021, he will open a Holocaust memorial in Amsterdam. At the time, Rutte called the period “the black page of our nation’s history” and said the memorial also contained an important contemporary message “in a time when anti-Semitism is never far away”. The monument says – no, it screams – beware.

A Holocaust museum is scheduled to open next year near the memorial.

The study, conducted within a margin of error of 2%, interviewed 2,000 Dutch adults aged 18 and over across the Netherlands in December. The Claims Council negotiates the return of Holocaust victims.