The Holocaust, World War II, and Iranian Studies

June 22–26, 2026

Toronto, Canada

Applications due January 12, 2026, and must be submitted online in English via our application form.

Overview

The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies and the Levine Institute for Holocaust Education at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), in cooperation with the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto, invite applications for a research workshop on the connections between Iran, the Holocaust, and World War II. Arash Azizi, Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism, Yale University; Jennifer L. Jenkins, Department of History, University of Toronto; and Lior B. Sternfeld, Department of History, Pennsylvania State University, will serve as co-convenors for the program, which will be held June 22–26, 2026, at the Mir-Djalali Institute at the University of Toronto.

This workshop will bring together scholars working at the intersection of Iranian history and Holocaust studies to share their research and to lay the groundwork for a collective publication featuring the participants’ papers.

We seek to contribute to the growing body of scholarship on Iran in the 1930s and ‘40s, which highlights the country’s role as a site of refuge, transit, and multifaceted political, social, and cultural exchange. Iran served as the most important non-combatant theater of World War II, and the Anglo-Soviet occupation of the country in 1941 fundamentally altered the trajectory of both the war and Iranian history, creating what some have termed a “lost decade” in the country's national development. During the war years, Iran became a haven for hundreds of thousands of European refugees, including thousands of European Jews, mostly from Poland, who fled Nazi persecution through the Soviet Union. As a result, the country emerged as an important center for global Jewish and Zionist institutions, which established extensive operations in Tehran after 1942, drawn in part by the proximity of the estimated five million Jews in the Soviet Union.  

The global war profoundly reshaped Iran's national politics, fostering the growth of civil society organizations while various nationalist, internationalist, fascist, and anti-fascist commitments animated the Iranian political scene. Iranian political actors found themselves advocating for both Allied and Axis forces. Some embraced the notion that Iranians belonged to a mythical "Aryan race," an idea that would persist in certain intellectual and political circles in the years to come. This terminology served multiple purposes: Iranian diplomats in Europe deployed it strategically in relations with Nazi Germany, while domestic political actors invoked it to advance nationalist projects at home.

Iranian responses to the war itself were equally diverse. Many celebrated their country's role as a "bridge to victory" for the Allied war effort, even as increasing numbers gravitated toward the emerging anti-colonial political movement led by Mohammad Mossadeq. These wartime transformations of Iran's political landscape had lasting effects on political movements and remain an understudied dimension of this period.

While Iranian Jews in Europe were targeted by the Nazis and their collaborators, and some Iranians were imprisoned and/or killed in concentration camps, the Iranian diplomatic apparatus in Europe worked to aid Iranian citizens in distress, including rescuing Iranian Jews from the Holocaust and facilitating their safe passage to Iran. The war years brought profound change for Iranian Jews at home, expanding their involvement in the political and cultural life of the country and bringing them into contact with Jewish populations beyond Iran and across the Middle East. Interactions with European Jewish refugees and transnational Jewish aid organizations proved pivotal in shaping Iranian-Jewish responses to Zionism. 

In later years, the memory of the Holocaust and the war experience would become contested subjects. Iranian Jews and non-Jewish Iranians commemorated the Holocaust in media and art, while other Iranians denied it—a stance that the Islamic Republic, founded in 1979, adopted and institutionalized as state-sponsored Holocaust denial that continues today. 

To deepen our understanding of this crucial period and its enduring impact, we invite applications that address, but are not limited to, the following themes: 

• Iranian survivors and victims of Nazi persecution and the Holocaust

• Iranian experiences in wartime Europe (as rescuers, witnesses, and bystanders)

• European refugee experiences in Iran during the 1930s and 1940s, with particular attention to Jewish refugees

• Nazi propaganda targeting Iranians

• Refugee transit through the Soviet interior to Iran

• The Anglo-Soviet invasion and occupation of Iran

• Relations among British, American, and Soviet occupiers in Iran

• The Soviet Union’s role in wartime Iran, especially based on Soviet archives 

• German-Iranian diplomatic, political, and economic relations during the interwar period and World War II

• The activities of the Polish government-in-exile in Iran and its relationship with the Iranian and Allied governments

• The activities of Jewish and Zionist organizations in Iran during the war 

• Pro-Nazi and fascist networks in Iran and their subsequent legacies

• Anti-fascist organizing and discourse in wartime Iran and its legacies

• "Aryan race" discourse in politics, arts, and culture, including conflicts with Nazi officials over Iranian nationalist appropriations of the concept 

• Depictions of the Holocaust in Iranian film and television 

• Holocaust commemoration and historiography in Iranian political and cultural discourse and media

• Iranian-Polish ties and postwar memorialization of Polish refugees in Iran, including the marginalization of Polish-Jewish experiences

• Holocaust denial by Iranian state and non-state actors 

We particularly encourage contributions that adopt transnational perspectives or engage innovative methodological approaches. Scholars whose work draws on understudied sources,  such as Persian-language materials and Soviet archival sources, are particularly encouraged to apply.

Daily sessions of the workshop will consist of presentations of participants’ research as well as opportunities to consult with Museum staff about its educational outreach and academic programming. In Toronto, participants will have access to the Tavakoli Archives, a unique repository of Persian-language rare books, manuscripts, lithographs, newspapers, and other written ephemera documenting the transnational Persian literary and print culture of the 19th and 20th centuries. Of particular interest is the archive’s extensive newspaper collection, which reflects the evolution of Iran's press landscape from strict censorship in the 1930s to the flourishing of diverse political journalism in the 1940s and early 1950s, when publications across the ideological spectrum—from nationalist conservative to communist—served as organizational hubs for emerging political movements and fostered dynamic public discourse despite wartime censorship by the Allied occupiers. The wartime press coverage, held by the archive, runs to around 250,000 pages printed between 1938 and 1956 and includes unique material. Holdings include a number of daily and weekly publications from across the political spectrum, such as Iran-e Ma, Iran-e Bastan, Nasim-e Shomal, Mard-e Emruz, Parcham-e Eslam, and Setareh-e Islam; the satirical weekly Baba Shamal; literary and scientific journals such as Sokhan, Yaghma, and Mehr; the record of parliamentary proceedings, Mozakerat-e Majles; and numerous other rare publications.

Participants will also have the opportunity to learn more about archival resources related to Iran in the Museum's David M. Rubenstein National Institute for Holocaust Documentation, which houses an unparalleled repository of Holocaust evidence that documents the fate of victims, survivors, rescuers, liberators, and others. The Museum’s holdings chronicle the experiences of European Jewish refugees in Iran and Iranian citizens in Europe during World War II through oral histories, personal papers, and institutional records. Extensive collections from major Jewish aid organizations operating in Tehran, combined with personal collections of letters, memoirs, photographs, music, and artifacts from refugees, illuminate the complex networks of refuge, aid, and cultural life in Iran during the war and its aftermath. Learn more about Iran-related holdings in the Museum’s Library & Archives.

Application Details

Applications are welcome from scholars and researchers affiliated with universities, research institutions, or memorial sites, and in any relevant academic discipline whose research addresses Iran during the Holocaust and World War II and their aftermath.

The Mandel Center will reimburse the costs of round-trip economy-class air tickets to/from Toronto, and related incidental expenses, up to a maximum reimbursable amount calculated by home institution location, which will be distributed within 6–8 weeks of the workshop’s conclusion. The Mandel Center will also provide hotel accommodation for the duration of the workshop.

Applicants should submit abstracts for papers that will be developed for publication in a special journal issue and/or edited volume. Participants are required to attend the full duration of the workshop and to circulate a draft paper in advance of the program.

The deadline for receipt of applications is January 12, 2026. Applications must include:

• A short biography

• A curriculum vitae

• A list of any related publications and/or ongoing research projects

• An abstract of no more than 500 words for the paper that the applicant is prepared to present during the program

All application materials must be submitted online in English via our application form.

Questions should be directed to researchworkshops@ushmm.org.

Co-Organizers

The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto offers a transdisciplinary hub for scholars, students, and community partners to engage in conversation to celebrate, study, and preserve Iranian history and culture. The Institute represents faculty and students working on Iranian history, literature, religion, languagesm and arts across the University of Toronto’s three campuses, and offers a meeting place to engage the community in this discipline across Canada.

An international leader in the field of Holocaust scholarship, the Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies provides for continued growth and vitality in the field of Holocaust studies, promotes networking and cooperative projects among Holocaust scholars around the world, and ensures the training of future generations of Holocaust scholars in the US and abroad.

The Initiative on Holocaust Denial and Antisemitism at the Museum’s Levine Institute, in collaboration with IranWire, has sought to educate Iranian audiences about the intersections between Iran and the history of the Holocaust, highlight its contemporary relevance, and counter the Islamic Republic’s state-sanctioned Holocaust denial through The Sardari Project: Iran and the Holocaust. Since launching in 2020, The Sardari Project has introduced Iranian audiences to Holocaust history through articles and videos on topics ranging from Nazi propaganda to Muslim rescuers, a Persian translation of a graphic biography about Anne Frank, fabricated texts like the “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and original research on Iranian victims of the Nazis, Persian newspapers from the Holocaust era, Iran as a refuge to those fleeing German occupation, and more. To date, Persian-language content produced through the project has received more than 15 million views across multiple social media platforms.