Dutch youth show ignorance of Holocaust in Netherlands

JTA – A recent study of the Dutch population conducted by the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany showed an alarming lack of education about the Holocaust in the Netherlands.

For one, a majority of Dutch respondents across all age groups didn’t cite their own country as a place where the Holocaust took place, in spite of the fact that the Netherlands was the setting of the world’s most widely-read Holocaust memoirs – Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl – which has been translated into more than 70 languages. About 75% of the country’s Jews were killed during the Holocaust, one of the highest rates in Europe.

The study, for which Schoen Cooperman Research surveyed 2 000 people across the country of over 17 million, also found that a majority of respondents (54%) and a slightly larger share of those in the millennial and “Gen Z” generations (59%) didn’t know that the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis totalled six million. Many said the total was as little as two million or fewer.

“Survey after survey, we continue to witness a decline in Holocaust knowledge and awareness. Equally disturbing is the trend towards Holocaust denial and distortion,” said Claims Conference President Gideon Taylor in a statement about the study released on 25 January. “To address this trend, we must put greater focus on Holocaust education in our schools globally.”

The Netherlands isn’t in a category of its own in such numbers. A study published on 24 January by the American Jewish Committee found that a similar proportion of Americans – 47% compared to 54% in the Netherlands – didn’t know that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.

However, researchers also found that the percentage of Dutch people who thought the Holocaust was a myth or greatly exaggerated (12%) was higher than in any other nation previously surveyed by the Claims Conference, an organisation that advocates for and distributes restitution funds to Nazi victims and their descendants. Nearly a quarter of those in the younger generations believed it acceptable to hold neo-Nazi views.

“One of the more troubling trends we continue to see in these surveys is the rise in numbers of people who believe the Holocaust was a myth or that the number of Jews murdered is exaggerated,” said Greg Schneider, Claims Conference executive vice-president.

In spite of those findings, a majority of Dutch respondents (77%) said that they felt that Holocaust education was increasingly necessary in the country.

“While many of the historical facts related to the Holocaust in the Netherlands aren’t known, I’m encouraged by the number of respondents to this survey that believe Holocaust education is important,” said Emile Schrijver, the general director of Amsterdam’s Jewish Cultural Quarter, and one of the people who conducted the survey. “We know that we can work together with educators to ensure the trends we see in Holocaust denial and distortion and the rise in antisemitism are countered by a robust curriculum of Holocaust education.”