The Holocaust is slowing fading from memory in the US, according to a new survey.
The Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Study - which surveyed 1,350 people - found 11 per cent of American adults and more than one-fifth of millennials either haven't heard of, or are not sure if they have heard of, the Holocaust.
The survey was released on Thursday's Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day to remember the systematic murder of six million Jews by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and its collaborators.
It also found two-thirds of American millennials cannot identify Auschwitz - perhaps the best-known Nazi concentration camp and the death site of almost one million Jews.
The infamous "arbeit macht frei" ("work sets you free") entrance gate to Auschwitz. Source: AAP
But a majority of Americans (58 per cent) believe something like the Holocaust could happen again.
The survey was commissioned by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, a group that negotiates for compensation and restitution for victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs.
President of the group Julius Berman said he was "alarmed that today's generation lacks some of the basic knowledge about these atrocities".
"On the occasion of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), it is vital to open a dialogue on the state of Holocaust awareness so that the lessons learned inform the next generation," he said.
Executive vice president of the group Greg Schneider said "there remain troubling gaps in Holocaust awareness while survivors are still with us; imagine when there are no longer survivors here to tell their stories".
