Forgetting the Holocaust

In the 1930s and 40s, six million Jews perished at the hands of the Nazis. But amazingly, this would be news to many among us.

Just about the only unequivocal example of evil most Americans can agree on are the Nazis. It’s why what’s known as “Godwin’s Law” holds that the longer an online argument about some issue goes on, the more likely it is that someone is going to invoke Adolf Hitler: We all agree that being like Hitler is bad.

But as a disturbing new report suggests, an increasing percentage of Americans don’t really know why Hitler and his henchmen are considered to be evil incarnate.

A study conducted by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or “Claims Conference” for short, found that forty-one percent of all respondents, and two-thirds of millennials, could not correctly identify Auschwitz. Not surprisingly, 45 percent couldn’t name a single concentration camp.

Only half knew that six million Jews perished in the Holocaust. One-third put the number mur