Or, 1 in 20 Britons in the lowest 5% for intellegence.

Of course it’s a lot more complex than that in reality, but sometimes it’s good to remember that, just as there are plenty of clever people out there, there are also plenty of stupid people.

If you want to get a real flavour of how ignorant – or stupid – Britain has become, listen to Akala discuss Brexit at 36 mins in:

The important quote further down the page

Olivia Marks-Woldman, of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, said: “I must stress that I don’t think [the poll respondents] are active Holocaust deniers – people who deliberately propagate and disseminate vile distortions. But their ignorance means they are susceptible to myths and distortions.” The Holocaust is taught in schools as part of the history curriculum, but “that might only be one lesson”, she added. “And people who are middle-aged or over may never have been taught about it.”

That poll found that one in three people knew little or nothing about the Holocaust, and an average of 5% said they had never heard of it. In France, 20% of those aged 18-34 said they had never heard of the Holocaust; in Austria, the figure was 12%. A survey in the US last year found that 9% of millennials said they had not heard, or did not think they had heard, of the Holocaust.

Time changes the importance of things we are taught about or how it is retained, for some of these people they may have had minimal history education and not really studied it much, they may know something but not much about it. For many people they have lost a direct reference to that time, when I grew up my grandparents generation lived through the war and the events surrounding it. There area a lot less of those people around these days.

I must admit I thought I was pretty well informed having watched plenty of stuff on the history channels over the years. I did find a lot of my preconceptions were challenged when I visited Auschwitz a couple of years ago. Interestingly I also found myself significantly questioning the way the Holocaust is taught. Basically I’m not surprised at this article but it’s a complicated issue.

Who is Amala, and why would his opinion on Brexit carry any more weight than some loudmouth in the local boozer?

I sometimes do tours in Mauthausen, Austria. I bring people from Danube cruises on buses round the camp. It’s a real eye opener as to how many people have absolutely no idea what went on in these camps.
I can’t do many tours a month as it suck up a lot of energy.

In other news one in twenty Britons is an arsehole.

Your figures are way out. It’s at least one in two.

I think they don’t teach modern history the way the used to in the 70s/80s, so young people are not as aware of WW1 and WW2

My daughters have both learnt about WWI and WWII the eldest in a lot more detail then I was taught.

Who is Amala… ….than some loudmouth in the local boozer?

edit: beaten to it by SoY. Its of interest to me that CZ perhaps fell for the very image related conclusion that Akala often discusses at length.

I’m with drac and timbog – don’t drag teaching of “youth of today” into this.

I agree, every school I’ve worked in has covered WWII in detail including the Holocaust.

In fact, there is so much about WWII in the history curriculum that I’ve heard people referring to the ‘nazification’ of history teaching!

Questioning the standard of secondary education is a red herring and an easy target. Slack jr is in his final gcse year and the history curriculum is as detailed as I remember it from the ‘70’s.

The relevant questions to be asked in response to the sensationalised headline are, how many people were questioned? What demographic ranges were they?

There is a lot of history to teach these days.

😂😂😂 Classic. About 40 more years than when I learnt it and in terms of humankind, 2.5 million years is 2.5 million years!

Classic. About 40 more years than when I learnt it

Whoosh

😂😂😂 Classic. About 40 more years than when I learnt it and in terms of humankind, 2.5 million years is 2.5 million years!

Well given our current NI Sec doesn’t understand the reasons behind the tensions out there, that is a key bit of history not being covered from the last 40 years. The end of the cold war and the changing face of Europe along with the middle east would put the current world in a lot of context for young people.

95% of the pop UK population believe in the Holocaust. That seems quite high. More would be better but it’s never going to be 100%.

Compared to 38% of Americans think humans were put on earth in their current form in the last 10000

Or 91.2% have had the MMR jab by the age of 2. That will never be 100% as some can’t have it. So they rely on the need protection, which we are losing

I agree, every school I’ve worked in has covered WWII in detail including the Holocaust.

We never covered it in History at school (80s), it was all Elizabethan stuff, Spanish Armarda, Hency VIII’s wives. Didn’t touch on WWI or II at all.

Learnt more from watching The World At War, then visiting Auschwitz and the reading Primo Levi’s books (did the last two in the wrong order though).

In other news one in twenty Britons is an arsehole.

A fairer evaluation would be that about 5% of Britons are unaware of something that happened 70+ years ago. There’s no smoking gun here.

I would imagine the figure would be higher in most other countries, not because they’re all horrible anti-semites, but we put more onus on the world wars than most other western countries.

Agree with footflaps, although I had a passion for learning about ww1 and ww2 as a kid that has continued to today, I didn’t learn any at school at all, started school in ‘81.
I can’t help but think the questions are going to practically guarantee a negative headline, that was of course the purpose.
However, it wouldn’t be at all surprising to learn that the knowledge was literally dying out. I’ve spoken to many ww2 soldiers, airman, merchant navy, and a few German ones as well (I used to fly with a ME110 pilot who was shot down the Battle of Britain), I guarantee that my children will never be able to do this, hence it will become less likely that people will ‘hear’ about it.

I can understand why people want to keep it front and centre in the minds of people but at times that is done at the expense of other very important moments in history (particularly the ones that are not so flattering to the UK)

I agree. My kids seem to be taught about the Holocaust endlessly, and always in terms of 6m Jewish dead. Never a mention about the many millions of others killed. I’ve had quite a few chats with my 15 yr old about it. I recently mentioned the battle of Cable Street when we were talking about the rise of fascism. She was completely shocked when I showed her a YouTube clip, demanding to know why it’s not talked about in school. I wonder why? For the same reasons as the history of British imperialism isn’t taught, I’d guess.

An uncle of mine was an ambulance driver during ww2.He was with the Americans when they got to one of the eastern Europeans concentration camps. He said the bodies were piled up like terraced houses ☹️. We didn’t cover it at school in the 80s. Really should have though. It needs to be. People can learn from other peoples mistakes.