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Students’ core knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust remains insecure, with many struggling to answer basic questions about what happened, to whom, where and when, finds new research from the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education.

The findings, published in the Knowledge and Understandings of the Holocaust report, show progress in students' knowledge and understanding compared with results from the Centre’s previous national study in 2016, but also reveals persistent gaps and prevailing misconceptions.

For the study, 2,778 secondary school students across England responded to a survey that explored what they knew and understood about the Holocaust.  

For example, the results showed that 73.0% of students correctly identified that six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Knowledge in this area had increased compared to 2016 when 56.8% answered this question correctly.  

Similarly, basic chronological knowledge appeared to increase in the new study with 83.3% of students knowing the Holocaust occurred in the 1940s, compared to 70.1% who knew this information in 2016. 

However, the study highlights other areas where there were limitations in students’ knowledge and understanding. For instance, only 30.2% of students knew that systematic mass murder began after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Similarly, the majority of students (90%) did not know that less than 1% of the German population was Jewish in 1933; whilst half of students (52.1%) were unaware that Nazi-occupied Poland was the epicentre of the killings. 

The researchers highlighted numerous challenges that have arisen from the way that the Holocaust is framed within the National Curriculum; no guidance is given for why the Holocaust should be taught, what the aims of Holocaust education are, what content to include and what pedagogic approaches teachers should employ. None of these issues have ever been addressed in the five versions of the National Curriculum since 1991.    

UCL research shows that when teachers are unsure about the most effective ways to teach the subject, struggle to access specialist professional development and/or have their own misconceptions and knowledge gaps about the Holocaust, this can negatively impact their students’ knowledge and understanding.  

The Centre’s latest research with students has exposed some stark and troubling realities. Whilst young people in England are required to study the Holocaust, many come out of these lessons without a grasp of some of the most fundamental aspects of this history.  

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