Half of Young French Adults Unaware of Holocaust, Sparking Andorra Education Push

Nearly half of young French adults aged 18 to 29 have never heard of the Holocaust, according to a recent report from The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. In the United States, half of respondents could not name a single Nazi concentration camp, despite the existence of some 40,000 such sites.

The findings, which also highlight gaps in awareness in Romania (15%), Austria (14%), and Germany (12%), have prompted concern among historians. Cristina Yáñez, a professor and researcher at the University of Andorra's Interdisciplinary Observatory for History, Political Science, International Relations, and the European Union, suspects similar levels of ignorance may exist locally. She recalls her own schooling in Andorra, where World War II—and the concentration camp system—were never addressed.

In response, the Observatory, the University of Andorra, and Canillo Council are organising the second edition of *The Importance of Teaching the Holocaust and Historical Memory*. The event, coordinated by Yáñez, runs from 3 to 5 March at the university. It targets teachers, students, and members of the public, featuring speakers including Claude Benet, Pau Chica, Quim Valera, Jorge Cebrián, Roser Porta, Ramon Tena, Alexandra Monné, and historian Joan Callarissa from the University of Vic.

Yáñez emphasised the course's urgency in preserving historical memory, countering denialism and hate speech, and promoting democratic values. It rests on three principles: ignorance of history risks repeating past mistakes; empathy, best fostered through personal testimonies rather than fiction, is essential to grasp the Holocaust's scale; and World War II's horrors reached Andorra directly, via escape routes documented by Benet and the first Stolpersteine plaques installed last spring in Velles Cases to commemorate eight locals deported to Nazi camps.

The Holocaust, Yáñez stressed, was a unique genocide: the systematic, industrial extermination of 5 to 6 million Jews and 220,000 to 500,000 Roma between 1939 and 1945. It stemmed from Hitler's antisemitic ideology since the mid-1920s, codified in the 1935 Nuremberg Laws and finalised at the 1942 Wannsee Conference as the "Final Solution." Hitler rose through democratic elections, not a coup.

Despite a proliferation of novels, films like the recent *Nuremberg* starring Russell Crowe, and series such as *The Tattooist of Auschwitz*, collective memory appears to be fading. Yáñez warned of the dangers in embracing totalitarian rhetoric amid current crises, citing post-war genocides from the Khmer Rouge to Srebrenica, the Rohingya, Tutsi, and Yazidi.

For deeper understanding, she recommended films including *The Music Box*, *Schindler's List*, *Shoah*, and *Nuremberg*; and books such as Primo Levi's *If This Is a Man*, Anne Frank's diaries, Dan Stone's *Holocaust: An Unfinished History*, and Heather Morris's *The Tattooist of Auschwitz*.