According to a survey, more than half (54 %) of Dutch people ignore that the Holocaust killed 6 million people, and 23 % of 18-40 year olds consider the number of Jewish victims very exaggerated.
by Jean-Pierre Stroobants (Brussels, correspondent)
More than half (54 %) of Dutch people know that the Holocaust made 6 million victims. A third of 25-35 year olds say they ignore that Anne Frank, whose newspaper is a world famous work, died in a Nazi concentration camp. “It is shocking to note that 23 % of millennials [born between 1980 and 2000] think that the holocaust is a myth or has been exaggerated,” adds Eddo Verdoner, the national coordinator of the fight against anti -Semitism, by analyzing the ‘Study published on January 25 by Claims Conference, an international organization that works to defend the interests of Holocaust survivors. A previous study by the same institute reported an equivalent level of skepticism.
The question of anti-Semitism remains very present in the Netherlands and 65 % of the 2,000 people questioned also consider that the phenomenon continues in their country. As for the past, his simple evocation remains a painful test: out of the 140,000 Jews identified in the kingdom, 102,000 were exterminated or died in the camps. Or proportionately the highest figure in Europe.
As early as January 1941, the Jews of the Netherlands were forced to register with the authorities. The whole public service had been put at the service of the occupation regime embodied by Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the Commissioner of the Reich. In the following months, the German occupier, based on the National Socialist Movement (NSB) of Anton Mussert, which had 50,000 members, and on a militia of which 10,000 members were going to engage in the Waffen-SS , started the deportations. Despite this page in history, 22 % of Dutch young people consider it “acceptable” that a person currently adheres to neonazi theses, 13 % saying “hesitate” about this.
conspiracy theories
Another marking teaching of the CONFERENCE CLAIMS investigation, while public authorities strive to counter the resurgence of anti -Semitic ideas and to clarity on the role of the country during the Second World War, only half of the respondents said support their action. Some 53 % of those questioned believe, it is true, that their country was not involved in the Shoah.
In January 2020, Liberal Prime Minister Mark Rutte had official apology for the persecution of the Jews. “Our government institutions have not acted as a guardian of justice and security,” he said, deploring that “too many Dutch officials had executed the orders of the occupier”. An intervention deemed “historical and symbolic” by community leaders.
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