A conference commemorating the effects of the Holocaust on Tunisian Jews is being held in Tunis.

Historians, scholars and authors are scheduled speak at the two-day conference, which ends on Sunday. The conference aims to remember the 5,000 Jews subjected to forced labor in Tunisia during a six-month Nazi occupation of the country. Some were deported to Nazi death camps on the European mainland.

The conference also is set to memorialize Muslims who saved Jews during the period, including Khaled Abdelwahhab, a Tunisian Muslim who successfully hid more than 20 Jews from the Nazis in a factory on his property.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The conference is sponsored by the Tunisian Association Supporting Minorities, a Tunis-based NGO which works to defend minority rights in the country, and by the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, a New York-based nonprofit that focuses on Muslim-Jewish relations.

Yasmina Thabet, head of the Tunisian Association Supporting Minorities, told reporters that by holding the conference “we are showing that we will not be deterred by threats and violence from helping Tunisians recover the memory of a searing event in our history.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount