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January 25, 2007

Say what?

Saturday is Holocaust Memorial Day in Britain and elsewhere around the world. Not surprisingly some enterprizing pollsters decided to survey British opinions and knowledge of the Holocaust.

Forty-one percent of Britons believe that an event like the Holocaust could happen in the country today, given the depth of intolerance and prejudice, according to a new survey.

Furthermore, 36 percent thought that most people would do nothing about it if it did happen, in a poll released ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day on Saturday.

The YouGov poll of 2,400 Britons found that 50 percent did not know that as well as Jews, homosexuals, disabled people and the Roma community were also targeted by Nazi Germany.

A further 79 percent were unaware that black people were persecuted and killed under the Nazi regime in Germany, which ruled from 1933 to 1945.

The "alarming" results beg the question "have we really learnt anything from the genocides of our recent past?", said Stephen Smith, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust chairman.

Indeed! Didn't somebody once say something along the lines of, those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it?

I wonder how American views and knowledge of the Holocaust stack up compared to the British?

Posted by Kevin at January 25, 2007 02:46 PM