A new survey has revealed "significant gaps" in the understanding of the Holocaust among adults in the UK.

Of those surveyed by The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany,  52 per cent did not know that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and 22 per cent thought that as few as two million or less Jews were killed.

The Claims Conference commissioned Schoen Cooperman Research to conduct a national study of Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness in the UK.

Gideon Taylor, president of the Claims Conference said they were "very concerned to see the profound gaps in knowledge of the Holocaust in this and in previous studies including about events connected to the UK."

A significant 76 per cent of respondents did not know what the Kindertransport was despite it being official UK government policy to accept Jewish child refugees fleeing Nazi Europe. 

However, the study also found that 89 per cent of people said they have definitely heard about the Holocaust, and 75 per cent know that the Holocaust refers to the extermination of Jewish people. 

Mr Taylor said it was encouraging to see the overwhelming majority of UK respondents say the Holocaust should be taught in schools.

"This is where we need to focus our energy. Education will not only fill the gaps in Holocaust knowledge, but it will also make for better, more empathetic citizens,” he said.

Notably the Claims Conference said that across all five countries it has studied – France, Austria, Canada, the United States and the UK, more than over half of all respondents do not know that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

The UK study also found that 56 per cent of those asked believe that something like the Holocaust could happen again today. 

When asked about the current-day threat of neo-Nazism, UK respondents believed America to have more of a Neo-Nazi threat than the UK.

In the UK 15 percent of respondents said they thought "there are a great deal of or many neo-Nazis in the United Kingdom today."

When asked the same question about the US 39 per cent of respondents said there "are a great deal of or many neo-Nazis in the United States today."

Surprisingly, nearly 1 in 10 UK respondents believed the Holocaust was a myth, or that the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust has been greatly exaggerated.