(JTA) — In a survey of 1,100 French adults, 57 percent of respondents indicated that they did not know roughly how many Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.
In the survey, which the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany commissioned in November and published Wednesday, 30 percent of respondents put the figure at under 2 million.
Misconceptions about the death toll were especially high among respondents younger than 38. Of those, 69 percent did not know that in reality 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, and 44 percent thought it was lower than 2 million.
Of the four countries surveyed by the group in recent years, French respondents displayed the highest level of ignorance on the topic, followed by Austrians (56%), Canadians (54%) and Americans (51%).
In France, 44 percent of respondent said they had never heard about Auschwitz. Only two percent knew about Drancy, the main internment camp for French Jews.
In the United States and Canada, only some states have added the Holocaust as a mandatory curriculum subject. It is mandatory in Austria and France.
“The survey shows that French schools aren’t doing a great job in teaching the Holocaust,” Greg Schneider, Executive Vice President of The Claims Conference, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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