Between 1941 and 1944, almost one and a half million Ukrainian Jews were murdered when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The immense majority was killed by Einsatzgruppen firing squads (mobile execution units in the East), Waffen SS units, the German police and local collaborators. Only a small minority was assassinated after having been deported to the extermination camps. Since 2004, Father Patrick Desbois and the Yahad-In Unum research team travel regularly across the regions of Ukraine, intending to identify and assess every site in eastern and western Ukraine where Jews were exterminated by mobile Nazi units during the Second World War.

The exhibition at the Shoah Memorial, from the 20th of June, 2007 to the 6th of January, 2008, presents their ongoing research. By reconstituting the assassins and procedural methods, it provides one with a better understanding of how the genocide of Eastern European Jews was actually put into practice. It has finally become possible to preserve and respect the places of burial for victims.