Expat Iranian joins with US Holocaust Museum to teach Jewish genocide in Persian

Journalist Maziar Bahari and his IranWire website are leveraging scholars from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to stamp out Holocaust denial at its roots, writes Matt Lebovic for the Times of Israel

For decades, Iran’s government has denied the Holocaust took place while threatening to annihilate the state of Israel. Now, acclaimed expat filmmaker and journalist Maziar Bahari is bringing Holocaust education to Iranians in their own language.

This fall, Bahari and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) launched “The Sardari Project,” an initiative to teach Iranians about the genocide in Persian. A series of 13 articles and videos are being released on topics including Holocaust history; Iranians fighting anti-Semitism, and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.

“I really think the world has to learn about the Holocaust because of the enormity of the tragedy,” said Bahari. “Every aspect of the Holocaust has a lesson for us now,” he told The Times of Israel in a recent conversation.

Growing up in Tehran during the 1970s, Bahari lived as a minority Muslim in a largely Jewish neighborhood. He immigrated to Canada in 1988 to study communications, but his Iranian chapter was still ahead of him.

Read the full article from the Times of Israel