Tunisian school textbooks praise Hitler while ignoring the Holocaust, researchers find

Schoolbooks in Tunisia praise Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and largely ignore the Holocaust, according to a new research report published earlier this week by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se).

The report examined some 80 Tunisian textbooks used in grades 1 through 13, finding repeated admiration for Hitler and the Nazi regime.

One Tunisian textbook described Nazi Germany as “a great economic and military power,” while a Grade 11 textbook praised Hitler as “one of the most important figures in the world of politics and warfare in the 20th century.”

Furthermore, it was found that Tunisian textbooks embrace antisemitic stereotypes and include hostile rhetoric toward Israel. IMPACT-se is an NGO based in the UK and Israel that specializes in monitoring and analyzing education systems worldwide.

Marcus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se, explained that the pro-Nazi and anti-Jewish sentiments in Tunisian textbooks are incompatible with the North African Arab state’s vision of becoming a modern and enlightened nation.

“Today’s Tunisian curriculum champions modern, enlightened values. It loudly celebrates gender equality, condemns racism, and encourages civic duty, tolerance, and peaceful dialogue. These are strong signals of a society moving forward," he said.

"However, these values cannot be selectively applied. It is entirely unacceptable that antisemitic imagery and rhetoric remain across subjects, and that violence against Israel is at times justified and even glorified. If Tunisia sees itself as an example of progress in the region, then this underbelly of discrimination must be addressed,” Sheff assessed.

The report noted that Tunisian textbooks deliberately avoided mentioning Jews when occasionally addressing Nazi atrocities such as concentration camps and book burnings. Tunisia was the only Arab country to be occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War. While mentioning that prominent figures like Albert Einstein fled Nazi atrocities in Europe, the textbooks refrained from mentioning their Jewish background.

According to the report, Tunisian textbooks also minimize the Holocaust of six million Jews. One Grade 13 schoolbook defended French writer Roger Garaudy, who was convicted in France for Holocaust denial, claiming that he was on trial for exposing “the false claims [of] Zionist thought” rather than for denying the murder of six million Jews.

The IMPACT-se report also noted classic antisemitic stereotypes in Tunisian textbooks. For example, a Grade 11 Arabic Language schoolbook presented a Jewish merchant as greedy and deceitful, claiming that these are characteristic traits of Jews “who are always like this.” The book also blamed Jews for the misfortunes of Egypt where the story took place.

A Grade 12 history book partially published a letter from 1798 by the French consul in Algeria who accused the Jews of secretly trying to “subjugate Tunisia” and seeking a “new regime that will devastate France.”

Tunisia and Israel do not have official diplomatic relations.

The examined Tunisian schoolbooks contained systematic hostility toward Israel’s very existence. The Jewish state is erased from most Tunisian curriculum maps, which label Israel within internationally recognized borders as Palestine. Furthermore, the Jewish national liberation movement, Zionism, was described as a “European colonial project” rather than the return of the Jewish people to its ancestral homeland Israel. Multiple textbooks claimed that Israel is driven by “colonialist and Zionist greedy ambitions,” and it is usually described as the “Zionist entity.”

The report also found that the Tunisian school system praised terrorism against Jews and Israelis. For example, a Grade 13 history book described the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes as a “fedayeen operation.” The word "fedayeen" in Arabic has positive connotations and means self-sacrificers.

In February 2025, IMPACT-se praised the Muslim-majority country of Azerbaijan as a model of tolerance for other Muslim-majority countries.

"The textbooks demonstrate a clear rejection of the extreme Islamist values promoted by their near-neighbor Iran," Sheff said at the time. "Instead, they promote tolerance, diversity, and a heartfelt respect for Jews and Israel, which serves as an important model for many other majority-Muslim states."