CULTURE WATCH : Danger in Ignorance

A Roper poll released last year seemed to yield the shocking finding that 34% of Americans either doubted or weren’t sure that the Holocaust ever happened. The poll, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, understandably set off alarms, for it appeared to indicate considerable headway had been made by that lunatic fringe that proclaims the Holocaust to be a myth. A second look at the question asked by the poll, however, suggested a more reassuring reason for its startling numbers. “Does it seem possible or does it seem impossible to you that the Nazi extermination of the Jews never happened?” That question, with its double negative, surely must be among the more confusing ever posed in a major opinion survey.

A follow-up poll with a rephrased question has elicited markedly dissimilar results. “Does it seem possible to you that the Nazi extermination of the Jews never happened, or do you feel certain that it happened?” More clearly asked, 91% of those polled said they were certain the Holocaust took place. Only 1% said it was possible it never happened, while 8% weren’t sure.

Of what importance is knowledge of any specific historical event, in this instance organized killing on an unparalleled scale? Its importance lies in the terrible revealing light it sheds on what ideological hatred can lead to, and on the inhumanity that ordinary people are capable of descending to. To be unaware of such an enormous crime, to deny or question its relevance to contemporary affairs is surely to weaken civilization’s barriers against barbarism.