Quebecers are far more unaware of the history of the Holocaust and other disasters of World War II than the rest of Canada, a new poll reveals. In parallel, two new museums about the death camps will soon see the light of day in Montreal and Toronto.
Nearly a third (32%) of Quebecers say they have “insufficient knowledge” of the Holocaust, compared to 21% of Ontarians and 24% of Canadians. This gap widens if we sort these data according to the mother tongue of the respondents. No less than 36% of Francophones admit to lacking information on this tragedy, compared to 13% of Anglophones.
This is indicated by a “self-assessment” survey of 1,534 Canadians conducted by Léger on behalf of the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS).
The modesty of Quebecers vis-à-vis their own knowledge partly justifies this difference. The lack of attention paid to the Second World War in Quebec schools explains the rest of this disparity, according to the president of the AEC, Jack Jedwab.
“If we deal less with the Second World War, we will pay less attention to the Holocaust,” he said in an interview with the To have to. Knowledge of this major event of the 20th century is also considered “insufficient” by 29% of Canadian Francophones, against 21% of Anglophones, notes the survey.
Mr. Jedwab knows the Holocaust very closely. His own mother survived a death camp. She is still alive, but her contemporaries are no longer of this world. The disappearance of these living memories therefore makes the transmission of history more complicated, he says.
“The last survivors of this era are mostly over 90 years old. After them, the burden to transmit this memory will be elsewhere. »
tendency to forget
Over the course of the polls on the question, the proportion of respondents claiming to know the history of the Holocaust decreases from year to year.
This tendency to forget is also observed in Europe, notes the historian. “The risk is having a certain detachment, and that the lessons of that time no longer apply today”.
However, governments invest museum spaces in order to perpetuate the memory of the six million exterminated Jews.
A new Holocaust Museum in Montreal is due to open in 2025. A new Holocaust Museum will also be inaugurated in Toronto in 2023.
The publication of this survey on June 14 coincides with the day when, exactly 82 years ago, the first deportation to a concentration camp in Poland began.