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well, there were still large
percentages of respondents
who did not meet the criteria.

The organization reported
that 63% of all national survey
respondents did not know that
6 million Jews were murdered,
36% thought that “2 million or
fewer Jews” were killed during
the Holocaust and 48% of
national respondents could not
name one of 40,000 concentra-
tion camps and ghettos.

Along with Pennsylvania,
the states with the highest
scores were
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Massachusetts,
Maine, Kansas, Nebraska,
Idaho, Iowa and Montana.

The states with the lowest
scores were Alaska, Delaware,
Maryland, New York, Georgia,
Hawaii, Louisiana, Florida,
Mississippi, and Arkansas.

The survey has garnered
mixed reactions among educa-
tors. Some think the data reflects
real problems with Holocaust
awareness among youth, while
others find the methodology
limited and alarmist.

Gretchen Skidmore, director
of education initiatives at
the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum, said the
study’s exposure of overall
14 OCTOBER 8, 2020
nationwide gaps in Holocaust
knowledge, as well as the amount
of disinformation young adults
are exposed to on social media,
is cause for concern.

“Also alarming is the high
percentage of respondents
saying they believe Jews were
responsible for the Holocaust,
or that the Holocaust is a myth
or exaggerated. And Holocaust
denial is a form of anti-Semi-
tism, which is on the rise and
dangerous,” she said. “As an
institution that works with
educators in all 50 states, it
is from our experience very
clear that for Holocaust educa-
tion to be successful, there are
certain conditions that are
really important, like ongoing
commitment from leaders,
local school districts and the
local community.”
Randi Boyette, senior
associate regional director of
education at Anti-Defamation
League Philadelphia, said she
was excited by the results of the
survey in Pennsylvania.

“When I look at this, when
I see that 80% of respondents
have definitely heard about the
Holocaust, that 89% see that
the Jewish people were victims,
but there’s so many others who
were able to name other victim
groups, that they had a lot of
core basic knowledge about the
Holocaust, when so many other
states — even states that are
mandated like Delaware, New
York and Florida — are among
the lowest, it actually made me
feel very good,” she said.

Boyette worked on the
advisory committee for Act
70, a bipartisan piece of legis-
lation passed in 2014 that
strongly recommended the
teaching of Holocaust educa-
tion in Pennsylvania schools
and provided resources for
teachers. She said Holocaust
educators were asked to
weigh in when the legisla-
tion was being crafted, which
played a big role in strength-
ening Pennsylvania students’
Holocaust knowledge.

“I do want to give a particular
shout out to Sally Flaherty, who
worked for the Department of
Education at the time,” Boyette
said. “She ran the Act 70 Advisory
Committee, and she was deeply
committed to Holocaust educa-
tion, and Holocaust, genocide,
human rights violation, educa-
tion in Pennsylvania, and very
purposeful in working with the
committee. The infrastructure
provided by the Department
of Education made a huge
difference.” That infrastructure included
statewide teacher trainings on
presenting content in age-ap-
propriate ways and connecting
the events of the Holocaust to
other civil rights topics.

Josey Fisher, director of
the Holocaust Oral History
Archive and instructor in
Holocaust and genocide studies
at Gratz College, was also on
the advisory committee for
Act 70. She said the legislation
focused on teacher prepared-
ness and support.

“You can have a state that
mandates Holocaust education
but does not offer preparation
or resources for teachers to
study and to explore and to
give them support so that when
they go into the classroom
they present the subject in the
most appropriate way,” Fisher
said. “Just because something’s
being mandated doesn’t mean
JEWISH EXPONENT
‘The Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs’ at the Horwitz-Wasserman
Holocaust Memorial Plaza
Photo by Sophie Panzer
it’s done well.”
Boyette gave examples of
Pennsylvania Holocaust educa-
tion initiatives that predated
Act 70, including Echoes &
Reflections, an educational
partnership among ADL, USC
Shoah Foundation and Yad
Vashem, and the ADL’s Bearing
Witness Program, a Holocaust
education initiative specif-
ically geared toward Catholic
schools. She also cited the
Jewish Community Relations
Council’s work connecting
students with survivors through
its annual Youth Symposium on
the Holocaust programs and its
Survivor Speaker Bureau.

Writing in The Forward,
Stephen Smith, executive
director chair of the USC
Shoah Foundation, criticized
the study for using a narrow
definition of Holocaust knowl-
edge, downplaying the efficacy
of Holocaust education and
inciting fear.

“The Claims Conference
survey defined ‘knowledge’
of the Holocaust as follows:
a person has ‘definitely heard
of the Holocaust’ (78% said
they had), can name at least
one concentration camp, death
camp and ghetto (52% could
name at least one), and knows
that 6 million Jews were killed
in the Holocaust (37% did),”
Smith wrote. “These are not
unreasonable things to expect
people to know. But it’s also a
high bar to clear in order to say
that someone has ‘knowledge’
of the Holocaust.

“The implication of this
survey is that people are
somewhat anti-Semitic because
they do not know facts about
the Holocaust, when in fact
they just may not know specific
details about history.”
Fisher said this was an
important point, and that
statistics may not always tell
the whole story.

“I am not involved in
statistical results. I want to
know what’s going on in the
classroom,” she said. “What
are students learning? What
should they be learning? How
can we help teachers?” l
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM