Nearly a third of Long Island residents don’t believe the Holocaust should be required teaching and suggest Jews just “move on” from the “exaggerated” genocide, according to a shocking new survey.
The survey of roughly 400 Long Islanders revealed that a disturbing number of Nassau and Suffolk county residents believe Holocaust deaths have been exaggerated, with even more outright opposing the horror be part of required curriculum in schools.
“The survey is intended to provide a roadmap for all of us — regardless of faith or ethnicity — because indifference or ignorance of how the Holocaust occurred threatens everyone,” said Steven Krieger, a Long Island-based real-estate developer who helped fund the study conducted by national conservative pollster McLaughlin Associates.
The findings — released on the anniversary of the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp — reveal that roughly 15% of respondents either straight-up believe the Nazi’s genocide was exaggerated to some extent or refused to answer the question.
About 30% said they don’t believe that Holocaust education should be required to be taught in public schools and that Jews should collectively “move on.”
The survey comes as antisemitism has surged to the highest levels ever recorded nationwide, according to the Anti-Defamation League — a trend that Jewish advocates link in part to the war in Gaza and now Lebanon, claiming a growing number of Americans are conflating the Israeli government’s actions with Jewish people as a whole.
“The government of Israel does not represent all Jewish people, but what we are seeing is a conflation of the two where people automatically associate all Jews with the actions of Israel, and I believe that is causing real antisemitism from extremists whose gripe is really with a foreign government,” an activist from Jewish Voices for Peace told The Post after viewing the survey.
Gloria Sesso, president of the Long Island Council for Social Studies, which co-sponsored the survey, said, “It is inconceivable that there are those who would propose that Jews ‘move on’ from the Nazi’s Final Solution.”
She said it is “irresponsible” to suggest the Holocaust is not relevant for classrooms and that the results of this survey should be a wake-up call for educators across the region, especially during a time where hateful online influencer are taking over young people’s feeds.
World War II only gets covered for about 90 minutes of class time in New York state, leaving plenty of room for hateful misinformation to flood their timelines without challenge, according to various experts on the state curriculum.
Dr. Bill Tinglin, an educator and author of the Holocaust book, “One of Humanity’s Darkest Hours,” called the poll’s disturbing findings dangerous.
“The world must remember,” Tinglin said.
“Future generations must understand where hatred begins and what happens when it goes unchallenged — hatred grows strongest where ignorance lives,” he said, adding that it is vital to teach young students these lessons early on.
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