In an exclusive interview with Maariv, Father Patrick Desbois, a French Catholic priest and a professor at Georgetown University, discussed his urgent mission to document what he called the “Holocaust by bullets,” using his organization, Yahad–In Unum.
The organization is dedicated to uncovering the truth about the more than two million Jews murdered by gunfire across Eastern Europe—often in their own towns and villages.
Founded in 2004, Yahad–In Unum operates using forensic, archival, and testimonial research, treating each massacre site as a “cold case.” Researchers begin with deep dives into historical records, followed by on-site investigations where they recover ballistics, forensic evidence, and eyewitness accounts.
By the time the organization had completed its mission, it had conducted 218 research missions across Eastern Europe, gathered over 8,183 testimonies—including 596 about the Roma genocide—and located more than 3,373 mass grave sites.
“The Holocaust is often visualized through ghettos and gas chambers,” Father Desbois said from his home in Washington. “But not enough people know that over two million Jews were shot to death in their own villages.”
His team aimed to emphasize that these murders were not carried out in abstraction—they were individual acts, perpetrated by Nazi executioners against Jews from identifiable families and communities. The organization’s work reconstructed these crimes, documented them, and preserved witness testimonies for future generations.
A personal connection and a broader mission
Father Desbois’s work was rooted in his own family history. His grandfather, a French soldier, was imprisoned by the Nazis in a World War II POW camp. While investigating that history, Father Desbois discovered that 1,500 Jews had been executed in a nearby village—an atrocity witnessed by locals but largely unrecorded. That discovery drove him to found the organization.
“Time was critical,” he said. “When you arrived in a village, often nothing was left—just a mass grave. And even that might not be marked. But there were still witnesses alive. That’s why we were racing against time.”
The organization’s work has brought closure to many families seeking information about lost relatives. In several cases, researchers identified burial sites, allowing descendants to visit for the first time, say Kaddish, or erect a modest tombstone.
Beyond the Holocaust
Yahad–In Unum also expanded its methodology to document modern genocides, including the ethnic cleansing of Yazidis in Iraq, the massacres of Mayan communities in Guatemala, and war crimes in Ukraine. In Iraq, the team conducted over 430 interviews with Yazidi survivors. In Guatemala, they held six missions and collected 170 testimonies. In Ukraine, more than 300 testimonies were recorded regarding Russian atrocities.
In 2016, the organization opened the first Holocaust museum in Central America, in Guatemala City, to help bridge the education gap.
Combating Holocaust denial and antisemitism
Father Desbois insisted that combating Holocaust denial and antisemitism required facts and education.
“We needed to train a new generation of leaders,” he said, citing the group’s work with several universities. Their evidence-driven methodology made it clear: the killings were systematic and personal. “There was documentation for every shooting. It was not a belief—and not just a Jewish belief.”
He also spoke out against the rhetoric comparing the Holocaust to current conflicts in the Middle East.
“Groups like Hamas didn’t use the word ‘Holocaust.’ They described Jews as ‘infidels,’ which served to justify violence,” he explained, citing global celebrations after the October 7 attacks as proof of a dangerous ideology.
One story that particularly moved him was that of a university student who joined one of the group’s research trips. After speaking to witnesses and visiting mass grave sites, the student was so deeply affected that he asked to have a bar mitzvah—believing it was a necessary personal and spiritual response to what he had seen.
“Every Jew was shot by someone,” Father Desbois said. “Every murderer saw his victim. Every victim saw their murderer.”
A map for memory—and leadership
Looking to the future, Father Desbois argued that moral and political leadership must be rooted in an understanding of history.
“The Holocaust wasn’t only an industrial event,” he said. “Every person was killed by another person.”
He concluded by emphasizing the importance of one of his organization’s most powerful tools: an interactive map on the Yahad–In Unum website. It featured translated testimonies and GPS coordinates of known massacre sites. Educators and students worldwide used it to explore what the priest called the “Holocaust by bullets.”
“We needed to accelerate our research,” Father Desbois said. “Not only to honor the victims, but to help heal the world. Without leadership—without history—tomorrow we would be very weak.”
Jesus Christ is King
