Statistics

A majority of U.S. teens and adults know what the Holocaust is and when it happened, but a fewer amount know specifics. The Pew Research Center ran a survey of both U.S. teens and adults, asking them four questions about the Holocaust, and education attainment seemed to be a major factor in how well the respondents performed. Those who had the equivalent of a high school diploma or less answered 1.7 questions correctly on average, while those with a college degree correctly answered 2.8, over a full point difference.¹ The column on the right gives us the results of this poll. 

I was able to consult three colleagues about their knowledge of the Holocaust. I did not give an outline, such as the survey did, but rather let them say anything they knew about the topic. I asked two high school graduates, one who is 19 years old and one who is 70 years old, as well as a college graduate who is 51 years old. As for the 19-year-old, they told me that the Holocaust was a genocide of  anywhere from 12 to 25 million Jews (estimates say approximately 6 million), and that there were other groups victimized by the Nazis, such as homosexuals and disabled individuals. The 70-year-old said the Holocaust involved the mass killing of Jews at concentration camps. As for the college grad, they were able to tell me that the Holocaust involved Nazis stealing Jewish art and taking prisoners to camps. Overall, there wasn't too much in-depth knowledge, but a very good general understanding of the genocide.