A new study by the Jewish Claims Conference on knowledge and perceptions of the Holocaust in the Netherlands reveals major gaps.

More than half of those questioned do not know that six million Jews were murdered.

Almost a third believe it was two million or fewer.

Also, more than half of the population sees no connection between their country and the Holocaust, although 70 percent of the Jewish population was murdered.

Thomas Gutschker

Political correspondent for the European Union, NATO and the Benelux countries based in Brussels.

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A third of those questioned could not name a single concentration or extermination camp.

Only a fifth know about the Westerbork transit camp, through which Jews were deported to other camps.

The study, published on Wednesday, shortly before Holocaust Remembrance Day, is based on a representative survey of 2,000 people in December; the error rate is 2 percent.

Knowledge gaps particularly large among young people

The ignorance is particularly great among people who are younger than forty years.

Almost a quarter of them consider the Holocaust exaggerated or even invented.

This is the highest proportion in this age group that the Jewish Claims Conference has ever measured.

France, Austria, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States have been examined in previous studies.

A third say they know someone who believes the Holocaust never happened.

After all, 90 percent had heard of Anne Frank before the survey, who was hiding from the Nazi occupiers in Amsterdam, but only 68 percent knew that she died in a concentration camp.

62 percent say they haven't visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam - it attracts more than a million visitors every year.

A fifth of all respondents agree that there are "many neo-Nazis" in the Netherlands today.

12 percent consider neo-Nazi views to be acceptable, in the group under 40 even 22 percent.

Two-thirds say antisemitism exists or is even “widespread”.

A third object to the Netherlands apologizing that the Jewish population was not adequately protected during the Holocaust.

Half support this step, which the government took three years ago.

"Declining knowledge is becoming more visible"

“With each study, the decline in knowledge and awareness about the Holocaust becomes more evident;

at the same time, there is a trend towards Holocaust denial and distortion,” said Gideon Taylor, president of the Claims Conference, which represents the interests of bereaved families and survivors of the Holocaust.

"To counteract this, we need to focus more on Holocaust education in our schools around the world."

This demand seems to be shared by a majority of respondents.

Two-thirds of all respondents and at least 57 percent of those under 40 are in favor of making teaching about the Holocaust compulsory in schools.

A total of 55 percent state that they first heard about the systematic murder of Jews at school.