IRELAND WILL PROVIDE €100,000 to the Auschwitz Birkenau Foundation to support its Holocaust Education programme, which will also make virtual tours of the concentration camp museum and memorial available to Irish secondary school students. 

Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee made the announcement today, Holocaust Memorial Day, saying it was a time to “pause to remember the horror of the Holocaust”. 

The announcement follows the publication of a survey earlier this month by Holocaust Awareness and Education in Ireland, which found that almost 10% of 1,000 respondents believe the Holocaust is a myth, while 54% of younger adults (18-29) did not know that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.

McEntee said it was important to honour the memory of “the six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis, as well as the Roma, persons with disabilities, those persecuted for their gender identity or sexual orientation, or for their political or religious beliefs”. 

McEntee said it was critical to ensure that “the Holocaust is never forgotten”. 

“Young people across Ireland – and the rest of the world – must be exposed to the brutal reality of the Holocaust,” she said. 

She said she was working with Minister for Education and Youth Hildegarde Naughton “to ensure our young people grasp the murderous scale of the Holocaust and the ways we can prevent it occurring again”.

“This is particularly important given the deeply worrying trends identified in a recent survey carried out on Holocaust Awareness and Education in Ireland.’’ 

Minister Naughton said that the new education resource was “so important” and she encouraged teachers, as well as parents, “to engage with young people so they understand the scale and brutality of the Holocaust”.