US Holocaust museum launches program on Jews who fled to Iran from Nazis
Despite the incredible story behind the event, not much is known about it, as Iran's leaders actively work to suppress information about the Holocaust.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFTower of Faces at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum(photo credit: WIKIMEDIA)
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum, in partnership with the Chautauqua Institution, will launch starting Tuesday a jointly presented online program on Iran’s connection to Jews who escaped the Holocaust.Taking the form of a two-part online live event and titled “The Tehran Children: Iran’s Unexpected & Suppressed Connection to the Holocaust,” the presentation is inspired by the 2019 memoir Tehran Children: A Holocaust Refugee written by Mikhal Dekel, who will participate in each segment of the program.The memoir tells the story of over a million Polish Jews who fled the Nazis during the Holocaust into the Soviet Union – specifically focusing on the nearly 1,000 children who were sent to Iran. The author’s father, Hannan Teitel, was one of these children.But despite the incredible story behind the event, not much is known about it, as Iran’s leaders actively work to suppress information about the Holocaust.“Today we think of the Iranian regime’s Holocaust denial and antisemitism, but there is also a rarely told story about the Iranian people welcoming Jewish refugees during WWII,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum director Sara J. Bloomfield said in a statement.“Exploring lesser-known aspects of this history can challenge our assumptions, which is what good education does,” she said.The event is part of “The Sardari Project: Iran and the Holocaust,” the result of collaboration between the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the popular Persian-language website IranWire.com. This series will feature several videos and other programs aimed at focusing on the history of the Holocaust and Holocaust denial, while also trying to understand the dangers such conspiracy theories have in both Iran and the wider world.“Iranians, especially young Iranians, yearn to understand the truth of the Holocaust,” IranWire.com founder Maziar Bahari explained, adding that “these articles and videos are not simple translations from other languages. We produced them with Iranian audiences in mind.”The series will feature 13 articles and nine videos, and will be available in both Persian and English. The content will be released through IranWire.com’s Facebook and Twitter channels, and be available at SardariProject.com.Sarah Chemla contributed to this report.
