Early this morning, I watched a piece via N-TV (commercial German news), and the topic was....Americans who had no idea of the Holocaust. The actual number was around 63 percent who didn't know much of anything over the German Jew situation in the 1930s/1940s.
The survey? Conducted by the 'Claims Conference'....a group of Jewish organizations.
Even going state by state....it was pretty dismal (19-percent in NY).
So here's the thing, you could have done the same history 'test' and asked about the American Civil War, and found the same numbers....with people knowing next to nothing about the event or the outcome.
You could have asked WW I, and a marginal group of people would have been able to answer ten basic questions over the start of the war, and key events.
You could ask questions about literally hundreds of events....that people should know some basic facts and find that it's a marginal group who remembers anything.
I can get the same basic story with German society....asking a dozen questions of the WW I era, and finding Germans lacking any real memory of the period.
Part of this problem is the dull nature of history, and that a majority of people have zero interest in this, while in their teens. Another issue is the presentation of the information in such a way, that is quickly forgotten in a matter of weeks.
Germans will express shock over this US statistical story involving the Holocaust, but if you conducted the same test with Germans (under the age of forty, and non-university people)....you'd likely get the same results. History just isn't something that gets remembered that much.
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