Wartime North Africa

The Holocaust is usually understood as a European story. Yet, this pivotal episode unfolded across North Africa and reverberated through politics, literature, memoir, and memory—Muslim as well as Jewish—in the post-war years. With UCLA colleague Aomar Boum, Sarah Abrevaya Stein has worked for a decade seeking out the stories of North Africans caught up in the dramas of the Second World War and Holocaust, authoring public-facing and scholarly writing on this topic, and delivering talks nationally and internationally on wartime North Africa. All told, their work blurs the boundaries of Holocaust Studies and North African Studies, suggesting, powerfully, that neither is complete without the other.

Wartime North Africa: A Documentary History, 1934-1950 (Stanford University Press, 2022)

Winner, Best Historical Materials (2023), American Library Association & Winner,  AJL Judaica Reference Award (2023), Association for Jewish Libraries.

“This brilliantly curated selection of personal histories illuminates the diversity and complexity of the North African region, culturally and politically, before, during, and just after the war. Wartime North Africa captures a broad spectrum of the lived experience of civilians across the region. Revelatory!”
—Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Chief Curator, POLIN
Museum of the History of Polish Jews

“A game-changer. Wartime North Africa comes as a revelation.”
—Michael Rothberg, author of Multidirectional Memory and The Implicated Subject


The Holocaust and North Africa (Stanford University Press, 2018)

National Jewish Book Award Finalist (2018)

“The Holocaust and North Africa extends the geographical and historical horizons of Holocaust studies. It challenges a Eurocentric focus, exploring the diverse persecution experiences and memories of Jews in North and West Africa, and raises interesting questions about the interdependencies of Nazi, Vichy, and fascist policies with colonial practices.”
—Wolf Gruner, Founding Director, USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research



Feature essays

With Aomar Boum, “L’Afrique du Nord pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale : une mémoire douloureuse parfois méconnue,” The Conversation, 8 January 2023.

With Aomar Boum, “80 years ago, Nazi Germany occupied Tunisia – but North Africans' experiences of World War II often go unheard,” The Conversation, 15 November 2022.

With Aomar Boum, “FDR’s broken promise: The Allies defeated the Axis powers in Africa — but the concentration camps stayed open,” Forward, 8 November 2022.

With Aomar Boum, “A Weapon of War: Famine from Wartime North Africa to Ukraine Today,” LA Review of Books, 28 July 2022.

With Aomar Boum, “North African During World War II,” Jewish Review of Books, Spring 2022.

With Aomar Boum, “Praise poems depict North African Jewish Responses to World War II,” Jewish Journal, 12 July 2022.

With Aomar Boum, “How North African Jews Have Been Erased From Holocaust History,” Ha’aretz magazine, 28 June 2022.

Contributions to the
US Holocaust Memorial Museum Online Encyclopedia

“The ‘International League Against Anti-Semitism’ in North Africa,” Aomar Boum & Sarah Stein
“Anti-Jewish Legislation in North Africa,” Aomar Boum & Sarah Stein
“Labor and Internment Camps in North Africa,” Aomar Boum & Sarah Stein
“Jews in the Maghreb on the eve of the World War Two,” Chris Silver, Sarah Stein, & Aomar Boum