While Whoopi Goldberg’s ignorance of the Holocaust is painful, it is far from striking. Many Americans don't know what it is
On Tuesday, Whoopi Goldberg was suspended from The View for stating, with striking confidence, that the Holocaust was “not about race”. She made the statement just days after National Holocaust Remembrance Day, when celebrities and politicians around the world had remembered the darkest period in world history, the racist genocide of 6 million Jews, roughly two-thirds of European Jewry, by Nazi Germany. Most emphasized the importance of remembering this horrific part of history to ensure “never again”. Goldberg’s comments were also made a week after a Tennessee school board banned the Pulitzer-winning Holocaust graphic novel Maus from schools.
While Goldberg’s ignorance of the Holocaust is painful, it is far from striking. Many Americans cannot even remember the Holocaust, because they don’t know what it is. For instance, a 2018 poll by the Pew Research Center found that just 62% of Americans know that the Holocaust refers to the extermination of Jews. Almost half (49%) know that 6 million Jews were killed. Although these numbers are up from 1993, where they were 54% and 35%, other polls confirm that knowledge remains limited at best.
Cas Mudde is a Guardian US columnist and the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor in the school of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia
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