We are a network of scholars who have come together because our field and our institutions are in crisis. We work in a variety of disciplines in the field generally known as Holocaust and Genocide Studies and have expertise in histories, theories, and contemporary cases of racism, antisemitism, fascism, and political violence, and in the study of genocides and mass atrocities in different parts of the world. Members of the group have affiliations in related fields such as Human Rights, International Law, Jewish Studies, Memory Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Settler Colonial Studies, Migration Studies, and Peace and Conflict Studies.
In the United States and globally, far-right forces are dismantling the institutions of democratic life; threatening basic human rights; demonizing immigrants, racialized minorities, and queer and transgender life; and attacking freedom of speech and assembly along with academic freedom. Over the last year and a half, we have witnessed the weaponization of Holocaust memory and accusations of antisemitism to justify genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing throughout Palestine — not only by state actors but also by institutions and scholars in our field. In the US, this same weaponization has resulted in the violent suppression of the right to free expression and protest and now in the arrest and threatened deportation of non-citizen students. The campuses where we work are subject to extortionate demands from a government that openly advertises its intent to destroy higher education, civil rights protections, scientific inquiry, and intellectual life.
Such events require an urgent examination of our field’s frameworks, priorities, and investments, and we commit to respond to this crisis in productive collaboration. Our expertise helps us to recognize and understand the erosion of democracy and the unfolding of political violence that we see all around us. Our study of histories of genocide and mass atrocity gives us insight into the rise of authoritarianism and ethnonationalism; the processes of dehumanization, ethnic cleansing, and genocide that accompany it; and the urgent need for civil society resistance. As we face this alarming authoritarian and nationalist turn, we come together in a joint commitment to mobilize our work in the interest of social justice and equality for all.