Father Patrick Desbois and Yahad-In Unum

Father Patrick Desbois

Father Patrick Desbois, whose grandfather had been deported to stalag 325 at Rava Ruska, has for the past six years undertaken a methodical and long-winded work on the history of the extermination of one and a half million Jews from Ukraine: identify and examine all Jewish extermination sites perpetrated by Nazi mobile units in Ukraine during the Second World War with the ultimate goal of providing a decent burial to these Jews shot in Ukraine.

This work, undertaken with the association Yahad-In Unum, created in January 2004 at the initiative of Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger and Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard on the one hand, and Mr. Israël Singer on the other hand, and whose father Patrick Desbois, Director of the Episcopal Service for relations with Judaism, is the president, enjoys the support of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah and Pope Benedict XVI in a letter dated 12 November 2005 addressed to Cardinal Lustiger.

These investigations, which have so far covered about a third of the territory concerned, have made it possible to lift the veil on the exact conditions of this mass murder.

Yahad-In Unum’s research in Ukraine

Yahad-In Unum’s research in Ukraine is carried out in three stages: information searches in the German and Soviet archives, field research (recording of testimonies, location of locations, ballistic investigations) and collects physical evidence of the genocide.

Archival research:

The archives of German courts and Soviet commissions provide initial information on the massacres committed by the Nazis in the Soviet Union, particularly in Ukraine between 1941 and 1944. These various funds inform the researchers of Yahad about the missions given to the German troops regarding the fate of the Jews, on the location of certain places of massacres, and give a starting point for work in the field.

Site visit and recording of testimonies:

Father Desbois and a team of experts regularly tour the regions of Ukraine in order to identify witnesses to the genocide who are still alive today. At the time of the facts, these witnesses were curious children or adolescents who either followed the columns of Jews going to the places of execution or who, hidden, watched the executions, or were part of those who, the Germans, with the complicity of the local authorities, took part in digging or plugging the pits, in transporting the victims or equipment. All often testify for the first time after sixty years of silence.

It is from three independently collected concordant testimonies that Yahad-In Unum admits the location of a previously unknown execution site.

Identification of Jewish mass graves and collection of ballistic evidence:

On the indications of the witnesses, the location of the pit is marked. The German shells, which are all dated, or any other ballistic evidence are collected before the location of the pit is camouflaged to prevent grave robbers from desecrating it.

The presence of German shells around the mass graves is important evidence that the execution was carried out by Nazi mobile units. Alongside this evidence, the team collected some personal items belonging to the victims: glasses, children’s games, jewelry, which were able to escape the greed of the killers. Five hundred execution sites have already been identified.

The exhibition at the Shoah Memorial presents the first results of this research, some of the ballistic evidence found on the sites and a selection of testimonies collected over the past six years by the Yahad-In Unum team.

The exhibition also traces the archaeological expertise of a mass grave, carried out in the village of Busk at the request of the Shoah Memorial by the team of Father Patrick Desbois in August 2006 and whose results confirm the terrible reality of the genocide by gunfire carried out between 1941 and 1944 in Ukraine and throughout the Soviet territory by the Nazi troops.

Une interview r�alis�e � la sortie de la messe

Deux t�moins d�limitent par des gestes l'emplacement d'une fosse

View of the site of Busk, in the region of Lvov where 15 mass graves were located in an old Jewish cemetery.
© Guillaume Ribot