Half of Britons have never heard of Auschwitz.

This is depressing for all of the obvious reasons. But also it’s just a bummer to think that so many people are just immune to serious conversations about history. Regardless of what lessons, if any, you draw from Auschwitz and the Holocaust, if you haven’t heard of it, it’s almost inconceivable to have a serious conversation about a vast swath of human history. For people like all of us at NRO, this just underscores that there are lots of people who are simply beyond our reach no matter what because they don’t even have the basic facts that make intelligent argumentation possible.

That said, I wouldn’t be shocked if this survey is a bit fishy in that all of the tut-tutting it will generate should be good publicity for the folks behind a new documentary on Auschwitz. And, of course, more people have probably heard of the Holocaust than of Auschwitz. But no matter what this is a sad sign for historical literacy in the English-speaking world.