In America, the Holocaust Is Losing Its Shock Factor

And people wonder why history repeats itself.

Some Americans joined Israel and its allies Thursday in solemnly observing Holocaust Remembrance Day. To commemorate it, the White House issued a proclamation in which the president “hereby ask[s] the people of the United States to observe the Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust, April 12 through April 19, 2018, and the solemn anniversary of the liberation of Nazi death camps, with appropriate study, prayers and commemoration, and to honor the memory of the victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution by internalizing the lessons of this atrocity so that it is never repeated.”

That last part — “so that it is never repeated” — is particularly noteworthy. We noted already that only some Americans commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day. As it turns out, the Holocaust is slowly losing its shock factor among Americans. According toThe New York Times, “For seven decades, ‘never forget’ has been a rallying cry of the Holocaust remembrance movement. But a survey released Thursday, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, found that many adults lack basic knowledge of what happened — and this lack of knowledge is more pronounced among millennials, whom the survey defined as people ages 18 to 34.”

All told, 31% of Americans — a number that jumps 10 percentage points among Millennials — are under the impression that Jewish victims numbered about two million, which is one-third of the true total of six million. Furthermore, the Times reveals, “Forty-one percent of Americans, and 66 percent of millennials, cannot say what Auschwitz was. Only 39 percent of Americans know that Hitler was democratically elected.”

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