Awareness among Britons of the Auschwitz concentration camp has soared, a survey shows, thanks in part to a royal scandal involving Prince Harry wearing Nazi regalia at a costume party.
A year ago, nearly half of all Britons said they had never heard of the camp that became a symbol of the Holocaust and the attempted genocide of the Jews, a BBC poll showed.
But asked the same question in January, all but six percent of respondents said they knew of it, Britain's public broadcaster said on Thursday.
A prominent Jewish group said the sharp rise in awareness about Auschwitz was largely due to the controversy in January surrounding Princes Harry and William, sons of heir to the throne Charles.
Photos of Harry, 20, wearing a swastika at a party were splashed across newspapers around the world, prompting calls for the two princes to visit the ruins of the camp in southern Poland. A royal family spokesman said on Thursday they had not done so.
William, 22 and second in line to the throne, was at the same party and had helped choose his brother's outfit.
"Obviously the prince's choice of costume raised the issue of Holocaust education prior to Holocaust Memorial Day," said a spokesman for the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jason Pearlman, referring to the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on Jan. 27. "At the end of the day, the Jewish community was satisfied in general that he realised the error in his ways. It was a very unfortunate incident."
Harry, younger son of Charles and the late Princess Diana, apologised for the gaffe.
The scandal erupted just two weeks before world leaders gathered in Poland to mark the liberation anniversary of the camp in which were murdered around one fifth of the six million Jews killed in the World War Two Holocaust.
It even drew in British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.
The BBC poll, conducted two days after the anniversary and involving 4,000 people, showed Auschwitz awareness levels among women and those aged under 35 had more than doubled to 92 percent and 86 percent respectively since the 2004 survey.
"Holocaust survivors were distressed by the original BBC survey results before the 60th anniversary," said chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, Stephen Smith.
"The vast improvement in awareness levels of Auschwitz and the atrocities of the Holocaust after Holocaust Memorial Day 2005 will do much to alleviate that."
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