I pushed The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews, by Father Patrick Desbois to the top of my “books-to-read” stack, and finished it Friday. I wrote about the fact that I bought the book, recently.

The Holocaust by Bullets is an extremely compelling book which details the journey of Father Patrick Bebois, along with a group of individuals (photographer, video camera person, interpreter, ballistics expert, researchers, etc.) on his journey to Ukraine in order to document the murder of 1.5 million Jews. Father Debois visited the sites where the Jews were murdered, where exterminations were committed by the “Nazi mobile Units in the Ukraine during WWII“.

The stories behind the exterminations are horrific and beyond belief, causing emotions beyond control in Father Desbois, and in the group of individuals who traveled with him. They often rode in silence after leaving gravesites, on their way to another area of investigation, as they were so overcome by what they had seen.

From bones to hundreds of bullet casings, and eventually a gold ring, and many other things, the items that were found are well documented and photographed. The sites of extermination were examined, and some were opened deliberately in order to document contents. With a Rabbi nearby, overlooking everything that was done, only the “top layer” of the mass grave was carefully examined, making sure the bodies were in no way moved or disturbed, so they could rest as they last were, without movement of any contents. “Using innovative methodology, interviews, and ballistic evidence, he has determined the location of many mass gravesites with the goal of providing proper burials for the victims of the forgotten Ukrainian Holocaust.” Kaddish was said over mass graves, by Orthodox Rabbis who arrived specifically in order to pray for the murdered victims.

The eye-witness accounts by those who lived within view of the exterminations and mass murders, city and town administrators, and other locals, are powerful and poignant and beyond my wanting to describe and articulate what I have read, because it was all so appalling, devastating, went beyond what my mind could fathom, and was so horrific. Father Desbois has included photographs in the book, of some of the individuals he interviewed.

Little known facts emerge, of which most of us are not aware. The Nazis “requisitioned” local citizens to cart the dead, to pull out their gold teeth, to bury them in the mass graves, etc., all under the threat of being killed, themselves. The eye-witness accounts were told by some who had family members “requisitioned”.

Father Patrick Desbois has given us an incredible, powerful and overwhelming account of the Ukrainian cities and towns that incurred the wrath of the Nazis during WWII. It is not a book for those with weak stomachs. It is not for the weak of heart, which doesn’t imply that I am powerful of heart, but I did have an extremely strong desire to finish the book, as I had been following the story of Father Patrick Desbois. My following his journey began when I read an article about him, last October, and wrote about it in a Jew Wishes post. It is a book filled with heart-breaking journeys and documentation, horrific information, yet a book that is an incredible educational and historical documentation of the events and exterminations that occurred in the Ukraine. Most of the information is little known, and The Holocaust by Bullets brings the unknown, little known, and hidden stories of the Holocaust in the Ukraine to the forefront. This book belongs on every book shelf, as a reminder of the horrors that took place, and as a remembrance to the victims who are no longer with us.

Father Patrick Desbois, a French Priest, has gone above and beyond what most human beings would do, in his endeavors to document and bring to the world the atrocities of the Holocaust in the Ukraine. His act of humanity and loving kindness (and the humanness of those who traveled with him) has not gone unnoticed.

For more information on The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews, by Father Patrick Desbois, visit the publisher’s website.

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Jew Wishes…Peace to you all.
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