The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies

The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Name	Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Type	Research institute
Established	1980s
Location	Minneapolis, Minnesota
Affiliation	University of Minnesota

The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies is an academic institute based at the University of Minnesota that focuses on the study, documentation, and teaching of mass atrocity, genocide, and the Holocaust. The center engages scholars, students, survivors, policymakers, and the public through research, archives, education, and public programming connected to cases such as the Holocaust, Armenian Genocide, Rwandan Genocide, and Bosnian Genocide.

History

The center was founded during the late 20th century amid increased scholarly attention to the Holocaust and comparative genocide studies that drew on work by scholars associated with Yale University, Brandeis University, University of Chicago, and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Early activities intersected with initiatives at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Shoah Foundation, and the American Association of University Professors. Over decades the center expanded connections to archives like the National Archives and Records Administration, collections at the Library of Congress, and university programs at Indiana University Bloomington, Stanford University, and Columbia University. Directors and affiliates included scholars influenced by figures from Hannah Arendt to Raul Hilberg, and methodological exchanges with historians from Simon Wiesenthal Center, Yad Vashem, and the Center for Jewish History shaped its trajectory.

Mission and Activities

The center's mission combines scholarly research, public education, survivor testimony preservation, and policy engagement tied to cases including the Holocaust, Cambodian Genocide, Soviet famine (Holodomor), and the Darfur conflict. It offers seminars that bring together faculty from Department of History (University of Minnesota), curators from the Minnesota Historical Society, legal scholars from Harvard Law School, and human rights practitioners connected to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Criminal Court. Programming includes conferences with participants from Yale Law School, lecture series featuring speakers from Princeton University, and workshops modeled on curricula from Facing History and Ourselves and the Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.

Research and Publications

The center sponsors comparative genocide research that dialogues with scholarship from Sociology-adjacent programs at University of California, Berkeley, genocide studies centers at UCLA, and publications in journals like the Journal of Genocide Research and the American Historical Review. It produces working papers and monographs drawing on archival sources from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, oral histories from the Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, and legal documentation from trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Faculty and fellows have published with presses such as Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and University of Minnesota Press, and collaborated on edited volumes alongside scholars from Columbia University, University of Toronto, McGill University, and Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Education and Outreach

Educational programs range from graduate seminars linked to University of Minnesota departments to K–12 teacher workshops modeled on materials from Facing History and Ourselves and curricula used in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Education. Public outreach includes film screenings tied to works by filmmakers like Claude Lanzmann and Steven Spielberg, panel discussions featuring survivors associated with the Shoah Foundation, and collaborations with museums including the Minnesota Historical Society and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The center organizes symposiums that convene participants from Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, Georgetown University, and Duke University to address legal and ethical issues raised by events such as the Armenian Genocide, Rwandan Genocide, and Srebrenica massacre.

Collections and Archives

The center curates archival collections that include survivor testimony, personal papers, photographs, and rare publications linked to communities affected by the Holocaust, Armenian Genocide, Cambodian Genocide, and other mass atrocities. Collections are cataloged in cooperation with repositories like the Library of Congress, the Minnesota Historical Society, and university libraries at University of Minnesota, Yale University, and Columbia University. Oral-history projects draw on methodologies developed by the Shoah Foundation and repositories such as the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, and materials have been used in research alongside holdings at the National Archives and Records Administration.

Partnerships and Affiliations

The center maintains partnerships with academic institutions including the University of Minnesota, Yale University, Harvard University, Columbia University, University of Toronto, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and UCLA, and with cultural organizations such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Shoah Foundation, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Minnesota Historical Society. It collaborates with legal and policy organizations including the International Criminal Court, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and with curricular partners like Facing History and Ourselves and the Wiesel Foundation for Humanity to advance scholarship, archives, and public understanding of mass atrocity.

Category:Holocaust studies Category:Genocide studies