Poll: Norway students don't know Pol Pot

Published: Jan. 30, 2008 at 4:58 PM

OSLO, Norway, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- A survey of Norwegian high school students has found a majority of those polled could not define Gulag or identify Pol Pot.

The survey, based on interviews with 998 Norwegian students ages 15 to 20, found 65 percent of respondents did not know who Cambodian dictator Pol Pot was and 64 percent did not know that Gulag was the Soviet agency that operated labor camps under communist rule, Aftenposten reported Wednesday.

The poll, administered by the Norwegian think tank Civita, also found that more than a quarter of the students could not identify Mao Zedong, the longtime dictator of China.

However, nearly all the students involved in the survey were able to identify Auschwitz and the Berlin Wall.

More than one-third of the students interviewed said they agreed with the statement that communism has improved the quality of life in some countries.

© 2008 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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