Kids 'think Auschwitz is a type of beer'

10 March 2009 | 12:08:48 PM | Source: AAP

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Many British schoolchildren think Auschwitz is the name of a beer brand (Getty Images)

Hundreds of British schoolchildren believe Auschwitz is the name of a beer, religious festival or type of bread instead of the infamous Nazi death camp, a new survey shows.

More than 1,000 high school students aged between 11 and 16 were asked what they knew about Auschwitz, where about 1.3 million people died during World War II.

Ten per cent said they were unsure, while eight per cent believed Auschwitz was a country bordering Germany, two per cent said it was a beer, another two per cent said a religious festival and one per cent said a type of bread.

Six in 10 students also had no idea about Hitler's Final Solution - a plan to exterminate all Jews - with a fifth saying they thought it was the name of peace talks to end the war.

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Hitler highly recognisable

Ninety seven per cent, however, were able to identify Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler from a photograph.

The London Jewish Cultural Centre, which commissioned the survey to mark the DVD release of WWII drama The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, said the results indicated that thousands of British students lacked an understanding of the Holocaust.

It estimated that among Britain's 4.5 million 11- to 16-year-olds, 90,000 believed Auschwitz was a drink and 45,000 thought it was a type of bread.

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