Less than 220K Holocaust survivors left worldwide, study finds

The big picture: Survivors are scheduled to speak at commemoration events around the world as advocates race to record their testimonies and as rising antisemitism and misinformation threatens to erase their stories.

• A small number of survivors are expected to speak at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial & Museum commemoration in Oświęcim, Poland.
• A handful of survivors will also be on hand at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

Zoom in: About 220,000 Holocaust survivors are living across around 90 countries, according to data from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) shared with Axios.

• That's down from 245,000 reported last year.
• The vast majority (95%) are child survivors born between 1928 and 1946.

Zoom out: International Holocaust Remembrance Day seeks to bring attention to the Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews.

• Though it's held on the anniversary of the Soviet Red Army liberating Auschwitz, it's also meant to memorialize survivors at Nazi death camps across Europe during World War II.

The latest: The Claims Conference this month launched "I Survived Auschwitz: Remember This," a digital campaign featuring Holocaust survivors who endured the extermination camp.

• The survivors respond on video to the question: Given your experience as an Auschwitz survivor, what is one specific thing...do you want people to remember for generations to come?
• "As we lose survivors, it is our responsibility to listen to their voices and carry their stories forward," Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference, said in a statement.

What they're saying: "I survived five concentration camps and ghettos —including Auschwitz. I know many people can't fathom what I have endured," survivor Aron Krell says in this testimony shared with Axios.

• The campaign is inspired in part by Krell's testimony about his brother, Zvi, who died from starvation after a year in the Lodz ghetto, the Claims Conference said.
• "But you can understand loving a brother like I loved Zvi, can imagine the unbearable pain that comes with losing one, and, hopefully, agree that the lessons of the Holocaust must always be remembered."

State of play: Anti-Jewish hate crimes reported to police across 20 major U.S. cities in 2023 rose 48% to a new record, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

• Elon Musk, the world's richest man, last week twice gave what scholars, journalists and rights groups said was a Hitlergruß, or Nazi salute.
• Musk then told members of the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party that "there's too much focus on past guilt," seemingly referring to the burden Germany carries for the Holocaust, two days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Threat level: The "Index on Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness," released last week by the Claims Conference, exposed a global trend in fading knowledge of basic facts about the Holocaust.

• While Auschwitz-Birkenau is the most well-known camp, nearly half (48%) of Americans surveyed are unable to name a single camp or ghetto established by the Nazis during World War II.
• Overall, a majority of 1,000 adults surveyed in eight countries did not know that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
• In the U.S., more than three-quarters (76%) of all adults surveyed believe something like the Holocaust could happen again today.