Father Patrick Desbois is president of Yahad in Unum, founded with Cardinal Lustiger, archbishop of Paris, and Israel Singer, chairman of the World Jewish Congress, and holds an endowed professorship at Georgetown University. He is the author of The Holocaust by Bullets, winner of the 2008 National Jewish Book Award, and has received numerous honors for his groundbreaking work on the Holocaust, including the Humanitarian Award from the US Holocaust Museum and the Tom Lantos Human Rights Prize. He travels extensively for speaking engagements and has appeared twice on 60 Minutes. He resides in Washington, DC, and Paris, France.
“What Father Desbois is doing is tremendous. . . . No one else is
doing the original groundwork. The evidence he has gathered is very
important—the forensic evidence of how they did the killing by
bullets.”—Michael Berenbaum, author of The World Must Know
“[In his new] book called In Broad Daylight: The Secret Procedures
behind the Holocaust by Bullets, Desbois says the Nazis and ISIS
used many similar tactics, like executing people in public and
enlisting local help in their murders. . . . His Paris-based
nonprofit organization Yahad-In Unum now houses video testimony
from thousands of witnesses detailing the methods, timing, and
tactics of each massacre. ”—Eleanor Beardsley, All Things
Considered, NPR
“The importance of Desbois’s new study lies in his detailed
description of how hundreds of thousands of primarily poor, rural
Jews were executed. . . . All the killings were done in broad
daylight and deliberately involved the local population. . . .
Finally, Desbois shatters postwar claims of innocence (that
continue to be made through the current day) by the Russian
Republic, Poland, and the Ukraine as to the role played by their
non-Jewish citizens in the Holocaust.”—Jewish Book Council
“Father Patrick Desbois, a French priest, might be one of the
greatest detectives of all time. In nearly a decade of work, he has
uncovered the murder of 1.5 million Jews in Eastern Europe during
World War II. His most recent book, "In Broad Daylight, maps out
the mass killings of Jews in Eastern Europe in exhaustive detail..
. . As a refutation to the Jew-hatred he has uncovered and to
counter the growing number of people who deny the Holocaust, [it
is] a painstaking account of the mechanics of killing whole
communities of Jewish men, women, and children . . . providing a
horrific account of the template Nazi troops used. . . and the role
that bystanders often played in helping them.”—Jewish Voice
"Chilling . . . One wishes it were a novel rather than a factual
recounting of the Nazi World War II slaughter of Jews in what was
then the Soviet Union. . . . Published at a time when Holocaust
denials dot the European landscape and white supremacy gains
traction in the United States, it is a sharp warning of the dangers
lurking when peoples or nations begin sliding down the slippery
slope of racist ideologies."—CatholicPhilly.com
“In his new book, . . . Father Desbois tells the story of the men
and women, most of them children during WWII, who watched, and
often assisted — willingly or at gunpoint — the Nazi killing
machine at work.”—Jewish Week
“If you sleep well at night, Father Patrick Desbois wants to change
that. . . . In Broad Daylight chronicles in disturbing detail how
the people in the former Soviet Union, young and old alike, were
complicit in the killings. He plans to keep doing this work until
the job is done, noting he has the blessings of the last two popes
to keep at it.”—Jewish Louisville
"The details . . . may strike some as banal, but the banality is
part of the picture: With essential roles filled by local people,
it sometimes took a village to kill a village’s Jews."—Jewish News
of Northern California
"One of his biggest—and most disturbing—discoveries is that despite
the shroud of secrecy and silence that has existed for about
seventy years, these mass killings were not only widely known, they
were widely watched. It was a public spectacle, a public
entertainment, not unlike Roman circuses and lynchings in the
South. Interviews with witnesses detail how, as children, they were
told to put on their best clothes to go watch the Nazis kill the
Jews. The soldiers even handed them binoculars to help them see
better.
"When asked why his work matters, he responds, “Because it still
happens. It’s not the past, unfortunately. It seems to be part of
the future.”—aish.com
“In a new . . . book about the Holocaust by bullets, Father Patrick
Desbois depicts in grim detail local bystanders' culpability while
Nazis implemented the Final Solution.”—Times of Israel
“Bluster can grab attention, but it is details that shake the
conscience. Father Patrick Desbois has done the heroic work of
documenting, literally down to the bullet, how genocide was
perpetrated by the Nazis, and how it was tolerated, even
facilitated, by civilians. By doing so, he has not only given us
insight into what happened, but what will continue to happen if we,
as civilians, are not vigilant. This book should be required
reading.”—Jonathan Safran Foer, bestselling and award-winning
author of Everything Is Illuminated and member of the US Holocaust
Commission
“Were it not for Father Desbois and his team, most of us would
still think the Holocaust was carried out in secret, behind the
walls of the concentration camps. We would not have to consider the
mothers and fathers who brought their children to watch the mass
murder of innocent Jews. Or confront the fact that so many helped
willingly and many more watched. Genocide, we learn from Desbois,
‘does not happen without the neighbors.’ It is not happening today
‘without the neighbors.’ And the reality for us all is that we are
‘the neighbors.’ Anyone who cares about humanity will not want to
miss this book.”—Lara Logan, 60 Minutes
"The late Congressman Tom Lantos warned that ‘The veneer of
civilization is paper thin. We are its guardians, and we can never
rest.’ Fr. Desbois's chilling new book shows us a world stripped of
its veneer of civilization, decency, and humanity. After reading
his account, we cannot sleep well—Fr. Desbois doesn't intend us
to."—Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, President, Lantos Foundation
“Father Patrick Desbois expands on his earlier study of the
Holocaust by Bullets with a deeply disturbing and penetrating
account of the mass shooting process as a two-day event that
started with a German official's calculation—the dimensions of the
mass grave based on the size of the local Jewish population—and
ended with Ukrainians, Poles, Russians, and other locals wearing
the clothing of their murdered Jewish neighbors. Desbois's unusual
book is a hybrid read—a lyrical memoir of rural life, a graphic
crime report that jolts your sensibilities and senses, and an
exhortation to investigate genocidaires both past and present. This
is among the most detailed and precise accounts of the intense
timing and routine methods employed by the Nazis and their
collaborators in their torture, murder, and theft of 2.2 million
Jews in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.” —Wendy Lower, John K. Roth
Professor of History at Claremont Mckenna College, director of the
Mgrublian Center for Human Rights, and author of the National Book
Award finalist Hitler’s Furies
"Father Desbois is a generation too late to save lives. Instead, he
has saved memory and history." —Wall Street Journal
"[Desbois] is a human bridge between the modern Jewish world and
the Catholic Church and a major conduit through which the Holocaust
will be remembered." —Christian Science Monitor
“What Father Desbois is doing is tremendous. . . . No one else is
doing the original groundwork. The evidence he has gathered is very
important—the forensic evidence of how they did the killing by
bullets.”—Michael Berenbaum, author of .The World Must Know
“[In his new] book called In Broad Daylight: The Secret Procedures
behind the Holocaust by Bullets, Desbois says the Nazis and ISIS
used many similar tactics, like executing people in public and
enlisting local help in their murders. . . . His Paris-based
nonprofit organization Yahad-In Unum now houses video testimony
from thousands of witnesses detailing the methods, timing, and
tactics of each massacre. ”—Eleanor Beardsley, All Things
Considered, NPR
“The importance of Desbois’s new study lies in his detailed
description of how hundreds of thousands of primarily poor, rural
Jews were executed. . . . All the killings were done in broad
daylight and deliberately involved the local population. . . .
Finally, Desbois shatters postwar claims of innocence (that
continue to be made through the current day) by the Russian
Republic, Poland, and the Ukraine as to the role played by their
non-Jewish citizens in the Holocaust.”—Jewish Book Council
“Father Patrick Desbois, a French priest, might be one of the
greatest detectives of all time. In nearly a decade of work, he has
uncovered the murder of 1.5 million Jews in Eastern Europe during
World War II. His most recent book, "In Broad Daylight, maps out
the mass killings of Jews in Eastern Europe in exhaustive detail..
. . As a refutation to the Jew-hatred he has uncovered and to
counter the growing number of people who deny the Holocaust, [it
is] a painstaking account of the mechanics of killing whole
communities of Jewish men, women, and children . . . providing a
horrific account of the template Nazi troops used. . . and the role
that bystanders often played in helping them.”—Jewish Voice
"Chilling . . . One wishes it were a novel rather than a factual
recounting of the Nazi World War II slaughter of Jews in what was
then the Soviet Union. . . . Published at a time when Holocaust
denials dot the European landscape and white supremacy gains
traction in the United States, it is a sharp warning of the dangers
lurking when peoples or nations begin sliding down the slippery
slope of racist ideologies."—CatholicPhilly.com
“In his new book, . . . Father Desbois tells the story of the men
and women, most of them children during WWII, who watched, and
often assisted — willingly or at gunpoint — the Nazi killing
machine at work.”—Jewish Week
“If you sleep well at night, Father Patrick Desbois wants to change
that. . . . In Broad Daylight chronicles in disturbing detail how
the people in the former Soviet Union, young and old alike, were
complicit in the killings. He plans to keep doing this work until
the job is done, noting he has the blessings of the last two popes
to keep at it.”—Jewish Louisville
"The details . . . may strike some as banal, but the banality is
part of the picture: With essential roles filled by local people,
it sometimes took a village to kill a village’s Jews."—Jewish News
of Northern California
"One of his biggest—and most disturbing—discoveries is that despite
the shroud of secrecy and silence that has existed for about
seventy years, these mass killings were not only widely known, they
were widely watched. It was a public spectacle, a public
entertainment, not unlike Roman circuses and lynchings in the
South. Interviews with witnesses detail how, as children, they were
told to put on their best clothes to go watch the Nazis kill the
Jews. The soldiers even handed them binoculars to help them see
better.
"When asked why his work matters, he responds, “Because it still
happens. It’s not the past, unfortunately. It seems to be part of
the future.”
—aish.com
“In a new . . . book about the Holocaust by bullets, Father Patrick
Desbois depicts in grim detail local bystanders' culpability while
Nazis implemented the Final Solution.”—Times of Israel
“Bluster can grab attention, but it is details that shake the
conscience. Father Patrick Desbois has done the heroic work of
documenting, literally down to the bullet, how genocide was
perpetrated by the Nazis, and how it was tolerated, even
facilitated, by civilians. By doing so, he has not only given us
insight into what happened, but what will continue to happen if we,
as civilians, are not vigilant. This book should be required
reading.”—Jonathan Safran Foer, bestselling and award-winning
author of Everything Is Illuminated and member of the US Holocaust
Commission
“Were it not for Father Desbois and his team, most of us would
still think the Holocaust was carried out in secret, behind the
walls of the concentration camps. We would not have to consider the
mothers and fathers who brought their children to watch the mass
murder of innocent Jews. Or confront the fact that so many helped
willingly and many more watched. Genocide, we learn from Desbois,
‘does not happen without the neighbors.’ It is not happening today
‘without the neighbors.’ And the reality for us all is that we are
‘the neighbors.’ Anyone who cares about humanity will not want to
miss this book.”—Lara Logan, 60 Minutes
"The late Congressman Tom Lantos warned that ‘The veneer of
civilization is paper thin. We are its guardians, and we can never
rest.’ Fr. Desbois's chilling new book shows us a world stripped of
its veneer of civilization, decency, and humanity. After reading
his account, we cannot sleep well—Fr. Desbois doesn't intend us
to."—Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, President, Lantos Foundation
“Father Patrick Desbois expands on his earlier study of the
Holocaust by Bullets with a deeply disturbing and penetrating
account of the mass shooting process as a two-day event that
started with a German official's calculation—the dimensions of the
mass grave based on the size of the local Jewish population—and
ended with Ukrainians, Poles, Russians, and other locals wearing
the clothing of their murdered Jewish neighbors. Desbois's unusual
book is a hybrid read—a lyrical memoir of rural life, a graphic
crime report that jolts your sensibilities and senses, and an
exhortation to investigate genocidaires both past and present. This
is among the most detailed and precise accounts of the intense
timing and routine methods employed by the Nazis and their
collaborators in their torture, murder, and theft of 2.2 million
Jews in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.” —Wendy Lower, John K. Roth
Professor of History at Claremont Mckenna College, director of the
Mgrublian Center for Human Rights, and author of the National Book
Award finalist Hitler’s Furies
"Father Desbois is a generation too late to save lives. Instead, he
has saved memory and history." Wall Street Journal
"[Desbois] is a human bridge between the modern Jewish world and
the Catholic Church and a major conduit through which the Holocaust
will be remembered." Christian Science Monitor
Father Patrick Desbois's Awards and Honors
Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Jewish Theological
Seminary, NYC, May 2015CRIF Award 2014 presented to Father Desbois
"in recognition of his commitment to the truth" by The Council of
Jewish Institutions of France and recognized by the French
President, François Hollande, Paris, March 2014Hope For Humanity
Award from the Dallas Holocaust Museum, Dallas, October 2013Lyndon
Baines Johnson Moral Courage Award from Houston Holocaust Museum,
Houston, May 2013Honorary Doctorate of Divinity from University of
Winnipeg, Winnipeg, May 2013U.S. Department of State Marks United
Nations International Day of Commemoration for Victims of the
Holocaust (Shoah) with a presentation of Yahad-In Unum
investigations by Father Patrick Desbois, Washington D.C., January
2013United Nations presents "Holocaust by Bullets: Uncovering the
Reality of Genocide" by Father Patrick Desbois, New York, November
2012 Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from New York University,
New York, May 2012Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Yeshiva
University, New York, May 2011U.S. State Department award from
Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Hannah Rosenthal,
Washington D.C., May 2011Primo Levi for Peace & Culture, Rome,
Italy, 2010Memoire de la Shoah Jacob Burchman Award from the
Fondation du Judaisme Français, Paris France, 2010 Honorary
Doctorate of Philosophy from Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, June 2009Honorary Doctorate from Bar-Ilan University,
Tel Aviv, May 2009Medal of Valor from the Simon Wiesenthal Center,
Los Angeles, May 2008Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur presented by
President Nicolas Sarkozy, Paris, June 2008National Jewish Book
Award (2008) for The Holocaust by Bullets by Father
DesboisHumanitarian Award, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,
Washington D.C., May 2008Jan Karski Award, American Jewish award,
Washington, D.C., May 2007
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