The Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is a locus for research and teaching on the Holocaust, genocides, and events of mass violence as well as on the memory and representation of these historical occurrences.

Join us Nov 14 for this special inaugural event. Meaning "lest you forget" in Hebrew, pen tishkach is the guiding principle behind the endowed chair, which is awarded to a distinguished scholar of the Holocaust who serves as director of the university's Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies.

The Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies is dedicated to study the origins and consequences of racism, anti-Semitism, and bigotry. We therefore note with alarm that events such as the one in Pittsburg have become too common in our midst in recent years; this is not what America should aspire to be.

Each year the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies (IHGMS) at UMass Amherst will bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from the Five Colleges to explore a broad topic. In the academic year 2018-2019 this group of IHGMS Fellows is exploring the topic of “1948: A Global History.”

The workshop seeks to take stock of innovative recent research on the war, its origins, and consequences as well as to open new avenues of research and interpretation. The research on the history and memory of the 1948 war in Palestine and Israel and its origins has seen tremendous innovation in recent years.