One day no living survivors of the Holocaust will remain. That is why Elly Gotz, who spent 1941 to 1944 in a Jewish ghetto in his native Lithuania, and then a year in Dachau, has digitized and transcribed video interviews with over 400 Holocaust survivors in a project commissioned by the Toronto Holocaust Centre. Gotz, 83, says it's important that children and grandchildren of survivors know these stories. As for the masses, that's another matter, and it begs the question: Will the Holocaust be forgotten?

"It will be forgotten in the way all historical events are by a majority of people," Gotz says, and he singles out the Napoleonic wars: The English remember their victory at Waterloo, while the French Remember Napoleon's conquest of Egypt. Today, similarly, Auschwitz is as much a memorial to slain Polish intelligentsia as it is to slain Jews.

But it's not just about selective memory. Michael Marrus, Prof. Emeritus of Holocaust Studies at the University of Toronto's Department of History, says Holocaust scholarship is at a high level today, but he is troubled by how history is taught in school. "Huge problems need to be examined about how much history our students get," Marrus says. "History used to be a mandatory subject but now it has assumed a secondary position. How many people know about the Battle of Britain? How many people in Britain know about the Battle of Britain?"

His point is well taken. Ontario high school students today need one credit in Canadian history to graduate; they can take the course over a semester in Grade 10 and never open a history book again. Time spent on the Second World War and the Holocaust depends on the teacher's preferences.

Not surprisingly, studies of young people here and elsewhere demonstrate profound ignorance of history. Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies, has found that knowledge of the Holocaust varies not only by country, but even within countries. "In Canada the lack of knowledge about the Holocaust and the Second World War is disproportionately higher in Quebec," says Jedwab. A 2008 survey by Leger Marketing found that 12% of francophones - and not only the young - had never heard of the Holocaust, compared to 4 of anglophones.

A 2010 study by Jedwab's group found that 35% of Spaniards between 16 and 24 had "weak" or "very weak" knowledge of the Holocaust. A 2007 poll in the United Kingdom showed that 28% of those aged 18 to 29 did not know if the Holocaust happened. A survey in 2005 commissioned by the American Jewish Committee studied Holocaust knowledge across the United States and six European countries. It found that knowledge was highest in Sweden and lowest in the U.S. When asked how many Jews were killed in the Holocaust, only 5% of Swedes said they didn't know, but in the U.S. it was 46%. Another question asked if people knew what Auschwitz, Dachau and Treblinka were; 91% of Swedes answered correctly, but only 44% of Americans.

When I met Elly Gotz, he had just returned from delivering a talk to 2,100 high school students in Winnipeg. He said they were very receptive, and that he has also talked to young Muslims about his life, and they are receptive, too. But then he tells about another survivor who spoke at a Catholic school in Toronto where there were many Muslim girls. "When my friend arrived, these girls turned their backs to her," Gotz said. "They didn't want to hear what she had to say. The teacher apologized and told her this is because of what they get at home."

Even in homes free of anti-Semitism and outright Holocaust denial, remembrance of the event is not a priority for most families. They may be exposed to it through popular media - Schindler's List was a powerful introduction for many - but that's not something we can bank on. Some students may choose to pursue history in higher levels of education, but, again, that's too few to keep the Holocaust alive in our popular memory.

There's only one solution. History needs to be taught properly in schools, and that should include a unit on the Holocaust.