Less than half of Americans, some 45 percent, know that 6 million Jews perished in the Holocaust, while 29 percent weren’t sure or had no answer, according to a Pew Research Center study released on Wednesday ahead of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp.
However, 69 percent of respondents correctly said that the Holocaust was between the years 1930 and 1950, while 63 percent of respondents correctly defined the Nazi-created ghettos as “parts of town where Jews were forced to live.”
Moreover, 43 percent of participants responded that Adolf Hitler became German chancellor “by Democratic political process,” while 25 percent replied “by violently overthrowing German government.” Another 28 percent saying they didn’t know or had no answer.
According to Pew, “the data suggests that relatively few people in this group express strongly negative feelings toward Jews,” and that “respondents who get more questions right also tend to express warmer feelings toward Jews.”