One-third of Canadian kids don’t understand or question the Holocaust, new survey shows

The authors are pushing for mandatory Holocaust education in schools.
A still from The Tattooed Torah, a film being shown as part of the Toronto District School Board's annual programming for International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

A new national survey, released today, reveals troubling news about the state of Holocaust education in Canada. Conducted by Liberation75, the Canadian charity focused on Holocaust commemoration and education, the survey found that one in three Canadian kids think the Holocaust either didn’t happen or was exaggerated or didn’t know how to answer the question, while nearly half don’t know six million Jews were killed. And despite the wealth of free Holocaust education materials out there, many Canadian kids still learn about the Holocaust from social media, movies, TV, comics and video games.

That’s why the authors are calling for provincial governments to make Holocaust education mandatory, rather than lumped in with world history and the Second World War.

Marilyn Sinclair, the founder of Liberation75, and Alexis Lerner, the survey’s author, join to discuss their research and findings.

What we talked about:

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