A 50-state survey found that a disturbing number of young Americans have bought into Holocaust denial conspiracy theories that have spread like wildfire on social media.
could some of this just be the fact that it happened ~80 years ago and people just generally forget historical things as time goes on?
I don't think so. The history of the Holocaust's cultural prominence in America is pretty convoluted (and I only have a surface-level understanding of it). Immediately after WWII, the US was not an Israeli ally and kinda distrusted Jews for being too Red (see Nixon, Billy Graham). The whole narrative of conquest, eugenics, and genocide against inferior races... went against the traditional self-narrative of the American elites, which pretty much was conquest, eugenics, and genocide against inferior races.
My personal guess is that young people distrust it as a reaction to the way it's taught (in addition to racism and Antisemitism, of course). American history education sucks - there's barely any European history, ancient or medieval. What is German nationalism? What is Christian Antisemitism? Who were the Jews and why do we have to have mandatory crying about them in language arts and social studies? If you only learn about them from American education it's like they just teleported into existence in time for the Americans to save them. And there're all these images of atrocities that you never see connected to any other war. Every other war is all - woohoo, we kicked ass, fuck the victims! But suddenly in WWII we have to cry for the victims?... I think the whole thing needs to be overhauled.
I don't think so. The history of the Holocaust's cultural prominence in America is pretty convoluted (and I only have a surface-level understanding of it). Immediately after WWII, the US was not an Israeli ally and kinda distrusted Jews for being too Red (see Nixon, Billy Graham). The whole narrative of conquest, eugenics, and genocide against inferior races... went against the traditional self-narrative of the American elites, which pretty much was conquest, eugenics, and genocide against inferior races.
The Holocaust only became a staple of the education system decades after the war - the first state laws about it appeared in the 80s, for example.
My personal guess is that young people distrust it as a reaction to the way it's taught (in addition to racism and Antisemitism, of course). American history education sucks - there's barely any European history, ancient or medieval. What is German nationalism? What is Christian Antisemitism? Who were the Jews and why do we have to have mandatory crying about them in language arts and social studies? If you only learn about them from American education it's like they just teleported into existence in time for the Americans to save them. And there're all these images of atrocities that you never see connected to any other war. Every other war is all - woohoo, we kicked ass, fuck the victims! But suddenly in WWII we have to cry for the victims?... I think the whole thing needs to be overhauled.