Meet the Author
Father Patrick Desbois is Roman Catholic priest who has devoted his life to confronting antisemitism and furthering Catholic-Jewish understanding. Desbois serves as co-founder and president of Yahad-In Unum, an organization committed to (1) supporting initiatives of dialogue “between Catholic and Jewish religious authorities and (2) to respond to the great needs of today’s world through common projects based on an ethic inspired by the Law received on Mount Sinai” (p. 220). Additionally, he is the head of the Commission for Relations with Judaism of the French Bishops’ Conference and Consultant to the Vatican.
Book Basics
For those who have studied the Holocaust a little and those who know much about the Shoah, Father Desbois’ writing invites new thinking as readers explore the stories of those who were neither among those killed nor directly tasked with the killing. The book recounts the travels of Father Desbois and his team as they interview elderly individuals who were observers of mass killings performed not with gas chambers, but systematically with bullets. Many were requisitioned at gunpoint to provide help in jobs that are almost unspeakable, including digging mass graves. In the words of Desbois:
All of these narratives were similar and yet they were all so different. The landscape of Ukraine, village after village, east to west, was transforming itself under my eyes into an ocean of exterminations. Whether in Bahkir in west Ukraine, or in Nikolayev in east Ukraine . . . The horrors of the Holocaust were not necessarily exactly the same from one place to another, but they did unfortunately cover the whole country without exceptions (p. 147).
So What?
The Holocaust is more recent than most want to realize. Over the last few years I have heard the stories of survivors thanks to the efforts of the Holocaust Museum & Education Center of Southwest Florida. I have also learned much as a result of the work of the Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Human Rights Studies at Florida Gulf Coast University.
- How did you form your current knowledge of the Holocaust? What sources and experiences have proven most helpful?
- What opportunities for further learning are provided through your faith community? through the larger geographic community?
Father Patrick Desbois. The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priests Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). ISBN: 9780230617575.