On Thursday, this shocking news made its way across the media: two-thirds of Millennials don’t know what Auschwitz was. Moreover, nearly half underestimated the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust. Perhaps most shocking of all, however, was the news that 22% of these young adults knew nothing about the Holocaust itself.

A writer at the Washington Examiner thinks she knows why.

Thanks to educators, writes Nicole Russell, young adults care more about social justice issues than history.

Indeed, the national curriculum for high school social studies teachers includes themes on influencing public policy. A group of teachers calling themselves the “Cult of Pedagogy” provides lessons on how to promote social justice in the classroom.

And, of course, teachers’ unions are all about promoting social justice, too.

How does all this affect young adults? Russell notes:

Since kids know more about bullying or LGBTQ rights than historical events like the Holocaust, they not only are sadly ignorant of history, which is its own price to pay, but it comes at an even greater cost: They lack the perspective needed to appreciate education or other things.

Not only that, but on Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday, various anti-Semitic groups used the day to condemn Israel. And I’m not talking about neo-Nazis and the alt-right here; at NYU in New York, 50 student groups pledged to boycott Israeli businesses and pro-Israel college groups. The tiny free nation of Israel, you see, is politically incorrect.

So while Israelis in a Jerusalem market stood silently for two minutes in remembrance of the Holocaust. . .

. . . the ‘Students for Justice in Palestine,’ along with other anti-Semitic groups, declared Israel to be racist.

So what’s happened?

This goes much deeper than just the current social justice fad. For decades, left-leaning media and other elites have selected which atrocities to plug, and which to quietly ignore.

For example, take the genocide known as the Holodomor.

The Holodomor was a manmade famine that occurred in the Ukraine between 1932-33, thanks to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who wanted to “eliminate the kulaks” — farmers who owned their own land. However, while about 28,000 Ukrainians were dying per day of starvation, New York Times reporter Walter Duranty brushed it off, writing, “Conditions are bad, but there is no famine.”

For whitewashing Stalin, Duranty received the 1932 Pulitzer Prize. Socialism, after all, was a good thing, according to the NYT. We can’t make it look like a disaster.

Or what about the Armenian Genocide, which happened from 1915-16?  At that time the Turks of the Muslim Ottoman Empire drove Christian Armenians from their homes into the desert. During the forced marches they endured starvation, assaults, exposure, and disease. Women were tortured and raped. Up to 1.2 million Armenians died brutal deaths.

This ethnic cleansing was the greatest atrocity of World War I. However, Turkey still denies its guilt, despite anger from descendants of Armenian refugees.

Do high school students ever learn about this? Probably not. After all, even our leaders — both Republican and Democrat — have refused to honor the Armenian genocide with a simple resolution. We can’t anger Turkey, now, can we? Especially over a bunch of Christians.

So while ignorance of the Holocaust is shocking, it’s really not that surprising. Teachers teach what they have learned. And now they’re teaching students that social justice is more important than learning dry old history, even if it’s a preferred narrative.

Remember what Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said in 2014 about Benghazi? “Dude, that was like two years ago.” That’s sort of the attitude we see today in schools: “Dude, that was like 70, 80 — 100 years ago.” Forget history — social justice now rules.