Hundreds of young people across the United States show a worrying level of ignorance about the Holocaust, according to a new national survey published by the Claims Conference.

One thousand interviews with “millennials” and “Generation Z” young adults, aged 18 to 39, revealed that many believe the Jews caused the Holocaust — in New York alone, 19 per cent of respondents blamed the Jews.

Sixty three per cent of all those questioned nationally did not know that six million Jews were murdered — and a shocking 36 per cent thought the number was “two million or fewer”.

A further 48 per cent of respondents could not name a single concentration camp or ghetto. More than half of those questioned — 56 per cent — were unable to identify Auschwitz-Birkenau.

This is the first time such a survey has been conducted across all 50 states. The interviews took place in March this year.

The worst performing states in terms of levels of awareness about the Holocaust included states with high Jewish populations such as New York, Maryland and Florida.

The best scoring state was Wisconsin, while the overall worst was Arkansas, where less than two people in 10 met the Holocaust knowledge criteria.

Many of the respondents acknowledged that their information about the Holocaust came from social media.

Commenting on the results, Claims Conference executive vice-president Greg Schneider said: “Not only was their overall lack of Holocaust knowledge troubling, but combined with the number of Millennials and Gen Z who have seen Holocaust denial on social media, it is clear that we must fight this distortion of history and do all we can to ensure that the social media giants stop allowing this harmful content on their platforms. Survivors lost their families, friends, homes and communities; we cannot deny their history.”