USA / UKRAINE: Catholic priest says the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust has been vastly underestimated by at least 1.5 million

Record ID: 644103

  • Title: USA / UKRAINE: Catholic priest says the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust has been vastly underestimated by at least 1.5 million
  • Date: 13th January 2010
  • Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (JANUARY 12, 2010) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) FATHER PATRICK DESBOIS, SAYING: "All these Jews have been killed like animals, buried like animals and it's one of the goals to transmit what we find to organizations that will take care of the protection of the mass graves. We are at this level." PEOPLE LISTENING (SOUNDBITE) (English) FATHER PATRICK DESBOIS, SAYING: "This killing began on the first day of the war, and finished the last day of the war. Many people think it finished when Auschwitz began, but in the east, they never brought people to Auschwitz." VARIOUS MEN LISTENING (SOUNDBITE) (English) FATHER PATRICK DESBOIS, SAYING: "The most difficult thing is to listen, to listen to an awful story. For example, this woman who told me she was forced to work on the corpse between every shooting to make space in the mass grave. She told me it was difficult because the corpse were moving. It's very difficult to know the truth and not to overreact."
  • Embargoed: 28th January 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVA1LGXG57SEPBCN53R30UWS2N6P
  • Story Text: The number of Jewish Holocaust victims could be underestimated by at least 1.5 million people, according to French Catholic priest, Father Patrick Desbois.
    During a speech at a luncheon hosted by The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday (January 12), Desbois said he has learned that more than 1.5 million Jews were shot, killed, and buried in mass graves in Ukraine during World War II. This is in addition to the six million Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps during the war.
    Desbois, also the founder of the Paris-based group Yahad-In Unum, which means "Together" in Hebrew and Latin, says up until recently, it has been difficult to get information about Jews killed by Nazis during World War II in Eastern Europe because of the limited access of Westerners to the former Soviet Union.
    "It was Cold War, it was the Berlin Wall, and we could not reach the archives that we are doing, we couldn't go in the small villages and interview people like we are doing now," said Desbois.
    Since 2004, Desbois says he has traveled to Ukraine to locate and study the mass graves of Jews killed during the Holocaust. Desbois says he intends to expand his research to Belarus, Poland and Russia where he says he expects to find more mass graves and many more uncounted Holocaust victims.
    Desbois says during his travels to Eastern Europe, he has interviewed about 1,500 witnesses to the massacre. Desbois says he has discovered about 700 extermination sites that contain 10 to 15 mass graves.
    During his speech, Desbois detailed how the mass killings were carried out.
    "In one afternoon with two shooters, they shot 1,500 Jews. Two shooters and three pushers. Why three pushers? The pushers were German people with gloves up to the shoulder to push the people who were only injured. Because in July 1941, they established a law not to use more than one bullet per Jew. One Jew, one bullet, one bullet, one Jew. So it meant if Jews were only injured, there were pushers and they were buried alive," said Desbois.
    Desbois adds that German ammunition found at the extermination sites proves Nazis were responsible for the murders.
    Most of Desbois research has been published in a book called "The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest's Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews".
    "All these Jews have been killed like animals, buried like animals," said Desbois.
    Desbois says, unlike in Western Europe, Eastern European Jews were not sent to concentration camps.
    "This killing began on the first day of the war, and finished the last day of the war. Many people think it finished when Auschwitz began, but in the east, they never brought people to Auschwitz," he said.
    Desbois says, according to the witnesses he has talked with, the entire Jewish populations of many small villages were annihilated within a few hours.
    The priest says documenting the massacre is difficult and emotional.
    "The most difficult thing is to listen, to listen to an awful story. For example, this woman who told me she was forced to work on the corpse between every shooting to make space in the mass grave. She told me it was difficult because the corpse were moving. It's very difficult to know the truth and not to overreact," said Desbois.
    Before the Holocaust, the Jewish population in the Ukraine dated back five centuries.
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