There is a man that undertook a wonderful work for the memory of Europe and the memory of Jews that had remained, for a long time, the unknown victims of what has been called the Holocaust by bullets.

This man is a priest. His name is Father Patrick Desbois. He was born in Châlons sur Saône, in Burgundy, 52 years ago. You can easily read on Internet “judéocité” that he has been the Secretary of the Episcopal Committee of the French bishops for the relations with Judaism and that he was a representative of the new Judeo-Christian alliance.

“My grandfather was deported to the Russian camp Rawa-Raska he says. Consequently, I was horrified by the Shoah. I became a priest in Lyon where Cardinal Decourtray showed me the way. I kept working with the Jewish community.

During a visit to the camp Rawa-Raska as a pilgrim, he started wondering where all the Jews were buried. Later on, old people from the village started coming and confessing. Together with the Shoah Memorial, Father Patrick Desbois has undertaken the long task of methodically recording the extermination of Ukraine’s one and a half million Jews. By identifying and assessing every site in eastern and western Ukraine in which they were exterminated by mobile Nazi units (the Einsattzgruppen) during World War II, his ultimate aim was to make sure  they receive a decent burial.

The work has been undertaken with an association, Yahad-In Unum, which was created in January, 2004, on the initiative of Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger and Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, and of Rabbi Israel Singer, President of the World Jewish Congress. Father Patrick Desbois is President of Yahad-In Unum, director of the National Service of French Bishops for relations with Judaism, consultant at the Holy See for Relations with Judaism.

The Yahad-In Unum research in Ukraine is carried out in three phases: information gathering in German and Soviet archives, field research (recording witness accounts, localizing sites, ballistic inquiries) and collection of the material proof of the genocide (identifying Jewish graves and collecting cartridge cases and other ballistic proof).

Two years ago, Father Desbois showed these proofs in the Holocaust Museum in Washington and, lately, at the Shoah Memorial and at the Sorbonne in Paris, together with young Ukrainians who talked Russian and Ukrainian.

The actual exhibition “The mass shooting of Jews in Ukraine 1941-1944, the Holocaust by bullets” presents their ongoing research. It lasts until November 30th

Father Patrick Desbois was awarded the Droits de l’homme Prize in 2006.

By Gilberte Jacaret