Global Approaches to the Holocaust at UNO Brings Attention to Holocaust Peripheries

This spring the Sam and Frances Fried Holocaust and Genocide Academy held a three-day program aimed at offering scholars a global understanding of the Holocaust.

The Omaha Regional Institute was co-organized by UNO’s Sam and Frances Fried Holocaust and Genocide Academy and the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University (HEFNU), the latter established in 1976 to advance Holocaust education at institutions of higher learning around the world.

Held April 3-5, 2025 on the campus of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, this institute brought together university educators and museum professionals to expand their knowledge about the global dimensions of the Holocaust. The program featured thirty-four participants, who arrived from across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, North Macedonia and Columbia. The Institute’s teaching faculty included Dr. Mehnaz Afridi (Manhattan University), Dr. Rebecca Erbelding (Holocaust historian and author), Dr. Yael Siman (Iberoamericana University), Dr. Ran Zwigenberg (Penn State) and Dr. Edward Kissi (University of South Florida) who delivered the opening keynote, “Africa and the Holocaust.”

Dr. Kissi’s keynote address focused on the historical, cultural, and moral reverberations of the Holocaust in Africa. Recognizing the brutalities against Jews by the Nazi regime, Kissi argued that as “distant observers” the people of west and east Africa began to re-evaluate Europe’s status as the “center of the universe.” The remaining two days featured groundbreaking sessions about how the Holocaust has been approached in Asia, North and South America, and the Middle East.

Dr. Tiarra Maznick, Assistant Director and Postdoctoral Fellow at HEFNU was appreciative of the experience. “The Omaha Regional Institute demonstrated the expanding scope of the field. It emphasized the global reach of the Holocaust, one extended far beyond continental Europe. Whether in the context of refuge or intervention, national narratives or cultural memory, global approaches to the Holocaust continue to inform us of the reverberating impact of Nazi crimes.”

The focus of the Institute is based on a forthcoming book co-edited by the Fried Academy’s Executive Director, Dr. Mark Celinscak, and Dr. Mehnaz Afridi who also spoke at the institute. Global Approaches to the Holocaust: Memory, History, and Representation will be published in November 2025. “The subject of global Holocaust studies is an important and growing field,” says Celinscak and adding that “a global approach incorporates perspectives and voices not always considered in more traditional Holocaust studies.” The Omaha Regional Institute demonstrated that the Holocaust encompassed not only Europe but also Asia, Africa, South and North America, Australia, and the Middle East.