I’ve learned something about going to history lectures. If I walk in cold, without knowing much or anything, I spend the first 20 minutes trying to orient myself. If I walk in with even a little context, I actually enjoy it.

That’s how I’m approaching the upcoming Adam Cherrick Lecture at Washington University.

On Thursday, March 5, scholars will explore Jews and Muslims in French North Africa and the story of King Mohammed V of Morocco during the Holocaust. If your Holocaust map mostly includes Germany, Poland and France, you’re not alone. North Africa rarely enters the conversation.

Here’s what to know before you go.

Europe was not the whole story

When France fell in June 1940, its North African territories — Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia — became part of the collaborationist Vichy regime aligned with Germany.

During World War II, Jews in North Africa were living under French colonial rule. Anti-Jewish laws imposed in Europe were extended across the Mediterranean.

Control shifted during the war. Libya was under Italian rule. When U.S.-led Allied forces invaded Morocco in November 1942, Axis forces moved into Tunisia. Tunisia became the only North African country where Jews lived under direct Nazi occupation, though that occupation lasted about six months before Allied forces restored control.

Understanding that the Holocaust reached Casablanca and Tunis — not just Paris and Warsaw — immediately broadens the story.

Who was King Mohammed V?

Mohammed V ruled Morocco from 1927 until his death in 1961. Though Morocco was a French and Spanish protectorate during much of his reign, he remained a powerful symbolic figure for both Muslim and Jewish subjects.

His resistance to aspects of Vichy anti-Jewish legislation became central to his legacy. After the war, he led the struggle for Moroccan independence in 1956.

He remains venerated in the Moroccan Jewish diaspora. His story functions as both documented history and powerful communal memory — a symbol of Muslim-Jewish coexistence during a period of immense pressure.

What’s misunderstood today

It is tempting to flatten history into simple narratives.

But Muslim-Jewish relations in North Africa during World War II were far more complex. Tensions had been rising between the two world wars, especially because of developments in the British Mandate of Palestine. Some Muslims supported Germany as an enemy of colonial powers. Others denounced Nazi antisemitism and fought alongside Allied forces.

Both Jews and Muslims in North Africa suffered under the disruptions of colonialism and fascism. That shared and divergent history remains largely unknown in many American conversations about the Holocaust.

Understanding it does not simplify modern conflicts. But it does deepen them.

Sometimes the best way to attend a lecture is not to master the material in advance, but to know just enough to listen well.

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