One in 20 Britons do not believe the Holocaust took place, and one in 12 believes its scale has been exaggerated, study finds
- One in 20 people in Britain do not believe the Nazi death camps ever existed
- The revelation provoked concern from Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors
- A survey by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust also found one in 12 believe the scale of the Holocaust has been exaggerated
A shocking three million Britons don’t believe the Nazi death camps ever existed, according to a new survey released on Holocaust Remembrance Day today.
The revelation that more than one in 20 people in the UK are Holocaust deniers provoked outrage and concern from Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors.
And the study – commissioned by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and involving 2,000 people – also found that one in 12 believe that the scale of the Holocaust has been exaggerated.
The revelation that more than one in 20 people in the UK are Holocaust deniers provoked outrage and concern from Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors. Above, Auschwitz I concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland
The findings come against a backdrop of bitter accusations of anti-Semitism within Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, while compulsory study of Holocaust history has been part of the National Curriculum for all schoolchildren aged between 11 and 14 since the early 1990s.
Describing the findings as ‘terribly worrying’, Holocaust survivor Steven Frank said: ‘The only way to fight this kind of denial is with the truth.
‘If we ignore the past, I fear history will repeat itself.’
And renowned historian Simon Schama, author of The Story Of The Jews, said he believed the internet was largely responsible for the level of deniers.
The study – commissioned by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and involving 2,000 people – also found that one in 12 believe that the scale of the Holocaust has been exaggerated. Above, the Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial in Germany