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The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest's Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews
'The Holocaust by Bullets' tells the poignant story of how a Catholic priest uncovered the truth behind the murder of one and a half million Ukrainian Jews.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published August 19, 2008
184 people are currently reading
1830 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Desbois
12 books25 followersPatrick Desbois is a French Roman Catholic priest, former head of the Commission for Relations with Judaism of the French Bishops' Conference and consultant to the Vatican. He is the founder of the Yahad-In Unum, an organization dedicated to locating the sites of mass graves of Jewish victims of the Nazi mobile-killing units in the former Soviet Union. He received the Légion d'honneur, France's highest honor, for his work documenting the Holocaust.
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August 11, 2016
This book gives a vivid account of the Holocaust in Ukraine. Father Patrick Desbois interviews people who witnessed the Holocaust (obviously they were young children at the time). Also he unearths physical evidence – the spent German cartridges, the buried bodies, the lime, the clothes… One can safely say that most villages in Ukraine experienced the Holocaust in some form or other.
This was not a Holocaust of imprisonment – it was a Holocaust by shooting. And not only that – the Jewish people needed to be transported, burial pits dug, the bodies placed in the pits (sometimes still alive) and then afterwards buried. The Nazis did the shooting, the Ukrainians did the aforementioned as well as housing and feeding the Nazi tormentors.
As can be imagined this makes for very visceral reading – one does have to stop and gasp at the sheer brutality. Father Desbois presents a human portrait of the victims who have names and faces because their Ukrainian neighbours remember them. And these neighbours who survived are also permanently scarred – over sixty years have passed, but these atrocities happened in their community and sometimes right in front of their houses.
The accounts can become repetitive at times. In general they support Daniel GoldHagen’s book on the willing executioner’s. The round-ups and the shootings were organized and initiated by the Germans. They occurred when the Germans arrived in the village. Also the findings of Father Despoils match those of the Soviet prosecutors who investigated shortly after the Germans left during the war. The findings of these prosecutors were kept hidden until the collapse of the Soviet system in 1990.
This was not a Holocaust of imprisonment – it was a Holocaust by shooting. And not only that – the Jewish people needed to be transported, burial pits dug, the bodies placed in the pits (sometimes still alive) and then afterwards buried. The Nazis did the shooting, the Ukrainians did the aforementioned as well as housing and feeding the Nazi tormentors.
As can be imagined this makes for very visceral reading – one does have to stop and gasp at the sheer brutality. Father Desbois presents a human portrait of the victims who have names and faces because their Ukrainian neighbours remember them. And these neighbours who survived are also permanently scarred – over sixty years have passed, but these atrocities happened in their community and sometimes right in front of their houses.
The accounts can become repetitive at times. In general they support Daniel GoldHagen’s book on the willing executioner’s. The round-ups and the shootings were organized and initiated by the Germans. They occurred when the Germans arrived in the village. Also the findings of Father Despoils match those of the Soviet prosecutors who investigated shortly after the Germans left during the war. The findings of these prosecutors were kept hidden until the collapse of the Soviet system in 1990.
July 27, 2018
This book follows Fr Patrick Desbois, a catholic priest, and his companions in his quest to locate and document the mass graves of one and a half a million Ukrainian Jews, victims of Nazi Einsatzgruppen, the mobile execution squads.
Fr Desbois travelled to the Ukraine, following his grandfather's internment there during the war, and was disturbed to find no trace of the murdered Jews.
"While the mass graves of the thousands of Jews who were shot are untraceable, every German killed during the war has been reburied and identified by name. The cemeteries are on the scale of the Reich. Magnificent cemeteries for the Germans, including the SS, little graves for the French, white stones covered in brambles for the tens of thousands of anonymous Soviet soldiers, and absolutely nothing for the Jews."
But by tracking down and interviewing witnesses and by uncovering physical evidence, ballistics, etc Fr Desbois began to piece together the truth.
Much of the book is given over to those interviews, including many witnesses who were children at the time, and many who were were "requisitioned" by the Nazis to dig holes, bury bodies, collect clothes & valuables, etc. - something I hadn't thought about before.
"These curious children who ran along behind the Jews, up to the place of execution, hiding in the grass or climbing up into the trees to watch. These children who saw their fathers dig the pits and their classmates stripped naked before being shot. Today, these children are now in their seventies and they want to talk."
Obviously this was never going to be a light read but I found the witness accounts, especially from those who were children at the time and had held onto their secrets ever since, particularly sad and moving.
Fr Desbois travelled to the Ukraine, following his grandfather's internment there during the war, and was disturbed to find no trace of the murdered Jews.
"While the mass graves of the thousands of Jews who were shot are untraceable, every German killed during the war has been reburied and identified by name. The cemeteries are on the scale of the Reich. Magnificent cemeteries for the Germans, including the SS, little graves for the French, white stones covered in brambles for the tens of thousands of anonymous Soviet soldiers, and absolutely nothing for the Jews."
But by tracking down and interviewing witnesses and by uncovering physical evidence, ballistics, etc Fr Desbois began to piece together the truth.
Much of the book is given over to those interviews, including many witnesses who were children at the time, and many who were were "requisitioned" by the Nazis to dig holes, bury bodies, collect clothes & valuables, etc. - something I hadn't thought about before.
"These curious children who ran along behind the Jews, up to the place of execution, hiding in the grass or climbing up into the trees to watch. These children who saw their fathers dig the pits and their classmates stripped naked before being shot. Today, these children are now in their seventies and they want to talk."
Obviously this was never going to be a light read but I found the witness accounts, especially from those who were children at the time and had held onto their secrets ever since, particularly sad and moving.
September 22, 2008
An interesting artifact, both for the fact of a Catholic priest working in Holocaust research, and for its place in the final days of the Holocaust as an eyewitnessed event. Desbois travels the Ukraine, interviewing elderly citizens who, sixty years earlier, witnessed and were sometimes forced to assist in the execution of Jews by Nazi einsatzgruppen. Thanks to Soviet secrecy and the emphasis in the West on the concentration camp part of Shoah history, Desbois finds himself discovering the sites of mass graves, uncovering murders larger than than Babi Yar, and interviewing hundreds of witnesses.
While Desbois's writing style is occasionally a little pedestrian, the historical and moral importance of his project cannot be denied. When the last witnesses die, Desbois's project, with its uncovered piles of German shell casings, will be one of the most valuable tools against deniers that we'll have.
While Desbois's writing style is occasionally a little pedestrian, the historical and moral importance of his project cannot be denied. When the last witnesses die, Desbois's project, with its uncovered piles of German shell casings, will be one of the most valuable tools against deniers that we'll have.
August 13, 2009
I usually finish reading a book in two or three days. This one took me several weeks because I could read only a few pages before I would start crying and would have to stop reading. The inhumanity of the Third Reich during the Final Solution is well documented. However, this book provides a different, yet equally disturbing, account of the genocide.
"The Holocaust by Bullets" is about 1.5 million people who were murdered in their villages by the Reich and its supporters. Friends, neighbors, and children witnessed the mass genocide and were forced to participate by the Reich. Eyewitness testimony is included at the end of each chapter and it adds depth to the story. This book is a must read for people who want to know more about the Final Solution.
"The Holocaust by Bullets" is about 1.5 million people who were murdered in their villages by the Reich and its supporters. Friends, neighbors, and children witnessed the mass genocide and were forced to participate by the Reich. Eyewitness testimony is included at the end of each chapter and it adds depth to the story. This book is a must read for people who want to know more about the Final Solution.
December 22, 2024
An enjoyable and well researched book about little known WW2 horrors.
August 23, 2008
Wow. Anyone with any interest in what happened in Europe during WW2 should read this book. Father Patrick Desbois has been researching what happened in the Ukraine by talking to the people who witnessed mass exterminations of Jews by Nazi mobile units across the countryside. They have discovered many mass graves and are recording all the stories surrounding these atrocities.
I finished reading The Holocaust by Bullets by Father Patrick Desboise. I saw a Nightline piece on Desboise a couple of months ago. Desboise was born 10 years after World War II, but he grew up in an area of France where lots of things happened during the war. His relatives were constantly pointing out where things happened and telling stories about it. They told stories about everything but the period when his grandfather was held at a POW forced work camp at Rawa-Ruska in western Ukraine, near the border with Poland. He visited the Rawa-Ruska for the first time in the mid-90's.
In 2002, on a return trip, Father Desboise and a surviving POW met with the Mayor. When he asked the mayor about where the Jews from the Jewish work camp were buried, the mayor's reply was, "We don't know anything about that." and then he changed the subject. The two men knew that 10,000 Jewish people had lived in Rawa-Ruska before the war and afterward there had been none. The following year, a new memorial was put in, and at the celebration, Father Desboise asked a performer if he knew what had happened to the Jews of the village. It just so happened that this man did. This man took them to where the ruins of Jewish houses and a cemetery. The next day, the mayor took his party to the mass grave where all of those people were buried together 60 years before.
After this first grave, Father Desboise could not stop thinking about it. He began to take trips with a translator, cameraman and audio man through the Ukraine. They would stop at all sorts of little villages to see if anyone was alive during the war. They would interview these survivors about what they saw. Many of these were just children when the German soldiers came. Many saw their neighbors dragged away and shot and killed. Many had relatives that were requisitioned and made to help the Germans. Numerous people told them the ground over the mass graves moved for 2-3 days after they were covered. Father Desboise eventually added a munitions expert who helped them find the grave sites by looking at for the spent ammunition casings. Even when able to do archeological studies, the group does not move any bodies, they carefully remove the layer of soil and study the way the top bodies are laid. They do not move anyone, because of Jewish Law, but they study the way people fell to recreate what happened. By counting the casings, they can get a close estimate to the number of victims that were shot.
Father Desboise has written a beautiful book about the most grisly real life events. He walks us through his childhood and the subtle pull that led him to this work. He has worked closely with researchers at the United States Holocaust Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies and researchers in Munich, confirming their research of where these atrocities took place. There is a gigantic amount of files from the Nazis and from the Soviets that document all that happened. Well, almost all. One of the researchers in Munich told Father Desboise that he had never seen anything that mentioned Ukrainians being "requisitioned," forced to work for the Germans as they murdered thousands of people. Father Desboise has given a voice in history to very forgotten victims of the Holocaust, those who died and those who have lived with grief and guilt caused by surviving.
I finished reading The Holocaust by Bullets by Father Patrick Desboise. I saw a Nightline piece on Desboise a couple of months ago. Desboise was born 10 years after World War II, but he grew up in an area of France where lots of things happened during the war. His relatives were constantly pointing out where things happened and telling stories about it. They told stories about everything but the period when his grandfather was held at a POW forced work camp at Rawa-Ruska in western Ukraine, near the border with Poland. He visited the Rawa-Ruska for the first time in the mid-90's.
In 2002, on a return trip, Father Desboise and a surviving POW met with the Mayor. When he asked the mayor about where the Jews from the Jewish work camp were buried, the mayor's reply was, "We don't know anything about that." and then he changed the subject. The two men knew that 10,000 Jewish people had lived in Rawa-Ruska before the war and afterward there had been none. The following year, a new memorial was put in, and at the celebration, Father Desboise asked a performer if he knew what had happened to the Jews of the village. It just so happened that this man did. This man took them to where the ruins of Jewish houses and a cemetery. The next day, the mayor took his party to the mass grave where all of those people were buried together 60 years before.
After this first grave, Father Desboise could not stop thinking about it. He began to take trips with a translator, cameraman and audio man through the Ukraine. They would stop at all sorts of little villages to see if anyone was alive during the war. They would interview these survivors about what they saw. Many of these were just children when the German soldiers came. Many saw their neighbors dragged away and shot and killed. Many had relatives that were requisitioned and made to help the Germans. Numerous people told them the ground over the mass graves moved for 2-3 days after they were covered. Father Desboise eventually added a munitions expert who helped them find the grave sites by looking at for the spent ammunition casings. Even when able to do archeological studies, the group does not move any bodies, they carefully remove the layer of soil and study the way the top bodies are laid. They do not move anyone, because of Jewish Law, but they study the way people fell to recreate what happened. By counting the casings, they can get a close estimate to the number of victims that were shot.
Father Desboise has written a beautiful book about the most grisly real life events. He walks us through his childhood and the subtle pull that led him to this work. He has worked closely with researchers at the United States Holocaust Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies and researchers in Munich, confirming their research of where these atrocities took place. There is a gigantic amount of files from the Nazis and from the Soviets that document all that happened. Well, almost all. One of the researchers in Munich told Father Desboise that he had never seen anything that mentioned Ukrainians being "requisitioned," forced to work for the Germans as they murdered thousands of people. Father Desboise has given a voice in history to very forgotten victims of the Holocaust, those who died and those who have lived with grief and guilt caused by surviving.
November 22, 2024
The crimes documented herein are unthinkable yet we all have a duty to witness them. It's a harrowing recognition that the crust of civilization is thin and the possibility of genocidal violence is always bubbling underneath. However, I found the telling here inferior to Father Desbois's other book, In Broad Daylight. This one reads more like a diary, with all of the repetition, lack of organization, and emotional preoccupations that such a form entails. The narrative jumps all over the place, often with jarring transitions. It's all oppressively sad but sometimes difficult to parse.
Further, the interview transcripts sometimes cast Desbois's accounts in a dubious light: he doesn't really probe beyond the surface of his interviewees' responses, even when they're plainly contradictory or hint at a much deeper role than they acknowledge. While many describe themselves or loved ones being requisitioned to dig pits, sort clothes, guard Jews, etc., very few admit to an active role in the Aktion. Obviously that's to be expected, but it's also difficult to swallow. The horror of the Holocaust by Bullets is the moral contagion pulling in ordinary people, but Desbois is too discreet to challenge his interlocutors' deflections and minimizations. His other book makes much clearer the extent to which Jews died at the hands of, or at least the active assistance of, their friends, neighbors, and coworkers.
The book also spends a little too much time examining the reactions of the investigative team. I understand why Desbois might write the book this way to exorcise his own pain in witnessing so much horror, but it reads as a touch myopic and paradoxically lets the reader off the hook too much: the appropriate emotional response is telegraphed so heavily, one need not really sit with it in our individual capacity as moral agent. Father Desbois cushions the blow by absorbing and digesting the horrors in our place.
While I believe everyone should have to read accounts like this to realize just how precious and fragile our peace is, this is not the volume I'd recommend. Get In Broad Daylight and wrestle with how easily you could find yourself an actor in a similar atrocity. It feels weird slagging off such an important effort as this, but my rating reflects only this written record of the heroic efforts of Fr. Desbois and his team.
Further, the interview transcripts sometimes cast Desbois's accounts in a dubious light: he doesn't really probe beyond the surface of his interviewees' responses, even when they're plainly contradictory or hint at a much deeper role than they acknowledge. While many describe themselves or loved ones being requisitioned to dig pits, sort clothes, guard Jews, etc., very few admit to an active role in the Aktion. Obviously that's to be expected, but it's also difficult to swallow. The horror of the Holocaust by Bullets is the moral contagion pulling in ordinary people, but Desbois is too discreet to challenge his interlocutors' deflections and minimizations. His other book makes much clearer the extent to which Jews died at the hands of, or at least the active assistance of, their friends, neighbors, and coworkers.
The book also spends a little too much time examining the reactions of the investigative team. I understand why Desbois might write the book this way to exorcise his own pain in witnessing so much horror, but it reads as a touch myopic and paradoxically lets the reader off the hook too much: the appropriate emotional response is telegraphed so heavily, one need not really sit with it in our individual capacity as moral agent. Father Desbois cushions the blow by absorbing and digesting the horrors in our place.
While I believe everyone should have to read accounts like this to realize just how precious and fragile our peace is, this is not the volume I'd recommend. Get In Broad Daylight and wrestle with how easily you could find yourself an actor in a similar atrocity. It feels weird slagging off such an important effort as this, but my rating reflects only this written record of the heroic efforts of Fr. Desbois and his team.
January 13, 2018
A very accurate, well-documented, thorough and irrefutable analysis of the "Holocaust by bullets", or the execution, by "Einsatzgruppen", special assassination units, of more than a million Jews and others in Eastern Europe in 1941-42, before Nazi Germany came up with gas chambers. Pere Patrick Desbois, a Catholic priest, went all the way to finding the spent German casings and counting them in each execution area.
A poignant reading, and a very efficient tool to fight growing negationism.
A poignant reading, and a very efficient tool to fight growing negationism.
July 18, 2012
This was a fantastic book as it delivered the historical facts along with the stories of the people. The work being done by Fr. Desbois is both inspirational and historically relevent and the only thing better than this book is speaking with him in person. I would highly recommend this book.
October 7, 2017
Deeply moving book about the Third Reich's little discussed and previously unstudied activities in the Ukraine. It is a worthy but highly disturbing read.
March 8, 2019
In case you didn't know, thousands of Jews were murdered in Ukraine in the early 1940s. They weren't deported to concentration camps or work camps. They were lined up by pits, shot, and buried in mass graves. This book is written by a priest who headed up a team to help uncover the truth 60 years later.
The opening chapter gives background on the author's life-how a French Catholic priest ever became interested and curious about Ukrainian Jews in the holocaust. The rest of the book traces his multiple journeys throughout Ukraine, interviews with witnesses, research in the DC Holocaust Museum, and his team of volunteers who helped make it possible.
Having been to Ukraine myself, much of what he described in the small villages with cows and chickens grazing freely and people wary of strangers was very familiar to me. It truly is another world, largely untouched and unchanged from the Soviet Union days, once you leave the major cities. The vast undertaking of this project, the years and hours and man power involved is commendable. The Holocaust is a terrible part of history that we desperately need to remember and these interviews with eyewitnesses are chilling and sobering.
The only thing that kept me from 5 stars-and this might sound petty-was the organization of chapters and information. Many times he would repeat the same interview or information in two chapters. Other times he would mention a witness (she saw her friend led out of town) and a page later the whole transcript of the interview with that witness was given. I'm not sure if this overlap was meant for emphasis or not. But it made a few things confusing. He also didn't follow a timeline so he would mention going somewhere in 2007 and in the next chapter recall an interview from 2006.
These writing/organizing issues do nothing to the actual history and if you don't know much about the Holocaust or the Jews of Ukraine, this is a great book to start with. Be aware some of the interviews and descriptions are graphic.
The opening chapter gives background on the author's life-how a French Catholic priest ever became interested and curious about Ukrainian Jews in the holocaust. The rest of the book traces his multiple journeys throughout Ukraine, interviews with witnesses, research in the DC Holocaust Museum, and his team of volunteers who helped make it possible.
Having been to Ukraine myself, much of what he described in the small villages with cows and chickens grazing freely and people wary of strangers was very familiar to me. It truly is another world, largely untouched and unchanged from the Soviet Union days, once you leave the major cities. The vast undertaking of this project, the years and hours and man power involved is commendable. The Holocaust is a terrible part of history that we desperately need to remember and these interviews with eyewitnesses are chilling and sobering.
The only thing that kept me from 5 stars-and this might sound petty-was the organization of chapters and information. Many times he would repeat the same interview or information in two chapters. Other times he would mention a witness (she saw her friend led out of town) and a page later the whole transcript of the interview with that witness was given. I'm not sure if this overlap was meant for emphasis or not. But it made a few things confusing. He also didn't follow a timeline so he would mention going somewhere in 2007 and in the next chapter recall an interview from 2006.
These writing/organizing issues do nothing to the actual history and if you don't know much about the Holocaust or the Jews of Ukraine, this is a great book to start with. Be aware some of the interviews and descriptions are graphic.
August 20, 2018
Words are not Enough
Father Patrick DesBois traveled to eastern Europe, gathering testimony from witnesses to Hitler's genocide. It has become his calling. An estimated 1.5 million Jews were rounded up and murdered in what is today Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine. To date he has uncovered hundreds of nearly forgotten mass graves of those slaughtered by Hitler's Eintzengrupen and the testimony of nearly 2000 witnesses, many of whom were children at the time.
These are the stories of those who watched, of the young men and women who were requisitioned to assist in digging the pits, mend the stolen clothing of the dead and push down the dead and the dying. For many this is the first and possibly last time that they have spoken of these things, because until now no-one wanted to ask or to listen. One cannot help but be moved by what they have to say. Some of this material can also be viewed at the web site yahadinunum (together in unity) dot org.
The dead cannot speak, so we must speak for them. May God bless Father DesBois and guide him and those who toil with him in his work.
Father Patrick DesBois traveled to eastern Europe, gathering testimony from witnesses to Hitler's genocide. It has become his calling. An estimated 1.5 million Jews were rounded up and murdered in what is today Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine. To date he has uncovered hundreds of nearly forgotten mass graves of those slaughtered by Hitler's Eintzengrupen and the testimony of nearly 2000 witnesses, many of whom were children at the time.
These are the stories of those who watched, of the young men and women who were requisitioned to assist in digging the pits, mend the stolen clothing of the dead and push down the dead and the dying. For many this is the first and possibly last time that they have spoken of these things, because until now no-one wanted to ask or to listen. One cannot help but be moved by what they have to say. Some of this material can also be viewed at the web site yahadinunum (together in unity) dot org.
The dead cannot speak, so we must speak for them. May God bless Father DesBois and guide him and those who toil with him in his work.
January 23, 2019
What a poignant reminder of a terrible time in history. The truths and accounts that Desbois uncovered were incredible and shocking. This is definitely worth the read for anyone who is studying the Holocaust. Many people think of the gas chambers as the main mode of murder during the Holocaust, but so many were killed at the hands of bullets in such a brutal manner. It was interesting to hear what drove Desbois into researching this topic and the process, methodology, and personnel that were involved in investigating these testimonies.
June 1, 2024
Essential reading to understand the Holocaust in the east of Europe. Devastating testimony of the morbid scale of German human destruction and the sheer horrific variety of methods they chose to murder their innocent, often child victims. It took great perseverance and tenacity by Fr Desbois to record the testimony of so many before it was too late, which is invaluable to our historical record.
It makes one angry all over again that many of the perpetrators (may they rot in hell) went unpunished and went on the enjoy the German economic miracle, children and grandchildren in tow.
It makes one angry all over again that many of the perpetrators (may they rot in hell) went unpunished and went on the enjoy the German economic miracle, children and grandchildren in tow.
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February 27, 2023what’s horrifying is not just that human beings can do such things to one another but the amount of people required to carry out such evil acts. so many people in ukraine were forced to be accomplices and so many of them never spoke about it because “no one ever asked.” how do you wrap your head around that?
November 26, 2023
An incredibly important story to tell; I commend Father Desbois for doing the research and then telling it. I do however disagree with one of the premises of the book, which is that the local Ukrainian people were “neither victim nor perpetrator” (laying the sole blame for the killings on the Nazi Germans). In reality, this was far from the truth, with the local Ukrainian population participating, sometimes reluctantly but oftentimes enthusiastically, in both the killing and the subsequent looting / pillaging of their late Jewish “neighbors.” 4 stars because, as mentioned, it is very important for this story to be told, but I do wish it was done more accurately.
June 15, 2023
One of the most heartbreaking books on the Holocaust I have ever read. I am thankful for Father Desbois’ work, and I pity the men and women who dared to lift their hands against those God calls the apple of His eye.
May 25, 2018
A French priest scours the Ukrainian countryside for mass graves and elderly eyewitnesses; and after two generations still finds plenty of both. As gripping as the production of another Frenchman - Claude Lanzmann, "Shoah" - this little book produces the kind of hard evidence to satisfy the inquiry of future generations, down to the production dates of German shell casings. It is not really "new" or "undiscovered" terrain: the killing fields of the Western USSR were already well-documented. But here we have the perfect combination of German records, material evidence, and eyewitness accounts of persons who were children and thus outside the politics of time and place, remembering only the unforgettable reality permanently stamping itself into their souls.
This accounting also shows the Holocaust was more than gas chambers and crematoria; that such death technology is not necessary for the spirit of genocide to flourish. It's sad but true, however, that if Hitler's armies had confined themselves to "body count" field killing they likely could have gotten away with it, chucked down the official Orwellian Memory Hole like My Lai.
In that regard there seems some desire here to sidestep the doings of Ukrainian collaborators. The elderly witnesses interviewed are always sympathetic: supposedly they feel the tragedy imposed upon their Jewish neighbors, as upon themselves, as co-victims of Nazi-occupied Ukraine. We know that is not the full story of this time and place. Fr. Desbois is doubtless working in a spirit of Ukrainian-Jewish reconciliation, under the moral authority of the West.
But his work shows that the facts themselves are unchallengeable; the truth is still out there, buried in the ground, awaiting light. The soil "still breathes."
This accounting also shows the Holocaust was more than gas chambers and crematoria; that such death technology is not necessary for the spirit of genocide to flourish. It's sad but true, however, that if Hitler's armies had confined themselves to "body count" field killing they likely could have gotten away with it, chucked down the official Orwellian Memory Hole like My Lai.
In that regard there seems some desire here to sidestep the doings of Ukrainian collaborators. The elderly witnesses interviewed are always sympathetic: supposedly they feel the tragedy imposed upon their Jewish neighbors, as upon themselves, as co-victims of Nazi-occupied Ukraine. We know that is not the full story of this time and place. Fr. Desbois is doubtless working in a spirit of Ukrainian-Jewish reconciliation, under the moral authority of the West.
But his work shows that the facts themselves are unchallengeable; the truth is still out there, buried in the ground, awaiting light. The soil "still breathes."
July 5, 2017
Haunted by the fact that his grandfather was a French prisoner held at the Rawa-Ruska forced labor camp was the impetus for Father Desbois to learn more and chronicle the stories of those who witnessed the barbaric shootings that occurred day and night throughout small Ukrainian towns during WWII.
This is not for the feint of heart. At times, I simply had to put this book down to take a break from the violence and to wrestle with the fact that so many live with the fact that they witnesses, and at the risk of being slaughtered, they too had to participate unwillingly as mass large holes were dug, Nazi trucks drove through the forests, one by one by one by one shot Jews, watched them fall in the pit, and then lined up more and more and more.
Uncovering the truth behind the 1.5 deaths, Father Desbois researched and chronicled the stories of those still living who either hid and saw what happened, or were forced to participate. Many of those interviewed had never spoken of what they witnessed as children. He and his kind team felt compelled to bring to light the stories of the mass graves throughout the Ukraine.
This is not for the feint of heart. At times, I simply had to put this book down to take a break from the violence and to wrestle with the fact that so many live with the fact that they witnesses, and at the risk of being slaughtered, they too had to participate unwillingly as mass large holes were dug, Nazi trucks drove through the forests, one by one by one by one shot Jews, watched them fall in the pit, and then lined up more and more and more.
Uncovering the truth behind the 1.5 deaths, Father Desbois researched and chronicled the stories of those still living who either hid and saw what happened, or were forced to participate. Many of those interviewed had never spoken of what they witnessed as children. He and his kind team felt compelled to bring to light the stories of the mass graves throughout the Ukraine.
October 17, 2010
While many of us have knowledge of the Death Camps and Work Camps of World War II where millions of Jews, Gypsies, Prisoners of War and others were brutally treated and murdered, the fate of nearly 1.5 million Soviet Jews at the hands of the Einsatzgruppen is not nearly as well known or documented.
Haunted by his grandfather Claudius's stories, Roman Catholic priest Father Patrick Debois began an effort to document the killing grounds of the men, women and children who died at the hands of murderous gun-toting men. Debois wanted to make known the graves of the victims to provide some sanctity for their senseless deaths.
Using previously unreleased documents from the former Soviet Republics, metal detectors and survivor and witness testimonies, Desbois and his team were able to determine the final resting places of many. This book is a haunting reminder of the mass destruction of lives, communities and a people.
Haunted by his grandfather Claudius's stories, Roman Catholic priest Father Patrick Debois began an effort to document the killing grounds of the men, women and children who died at the hands of murderous gun-toting men. Debois wanted to make known the graves of the victims to provide some sanctity for their senseless deaths.
Using previously unreleased documents from the former Soviet Republics, metal detectors and survivor and witness testimonies, Desbois and his team were able to determine the final resting places of many. This book is a haunting reminder of the mass destruction of lives, communities and a people.
May 21, 2017
I heard Patrick Desbois speak, and was fascinated by the stories he has unearthed from small towns all over Ukraine. I can hardly believe they are true. I have always felt that knowing uncomfortable truths are better than hiding and forgetting. The work he has done so that Catholic and Jewish groups can come together to document and remember those who died in the holocaust (in particular in Ukraine) is powerful. I may have nightmares for awhile because of the true stories he unearthed. He honestly talks of the toll it takes on him and others to do this work. It is not easy physically or emotionally. To know the Ukranians had so much happen that is never talked about, yet was right in the open is heart breaking. We can't change the past, but we can certainly learn from it.
January 6, 2018
This book had an especially powerful effect on me because I lived there for two years. In fact, I think I was there while Father Patrick Desbois was collecting information, taking interviews, and writing his book. I was shocked and appalled to realize that, like most people in Ukraine, I must have lived or traveled over the dead. If even Babi Yar has only a small plaque to commemorate the horrors that took place there, what markers could we expect for murders in a small town?
But though this book tells a terrible history, it is well worth reading. If you want to know how the Holocaust started– or if you giggled over the language in Everything Is Illuminated and then wondered what terrible truths lay behind the grandfather's despair– this book will tell you.
But though this book tells a terrible history, it is well worth reading. If you want to know how the Holocaust started– or if you giggled over the language in Everything Is Illuminated and then wondered what terrible truths lay behind the grandfather's despair– this book will tell you.
February 11, 2018
Father Desbois does a great job of telling the story of the Jewish people of Ukraine who were massacred by the Nazis. The horrible atrocities that multiple young children had to witness are heart wrenching, and almost brings you to the point of tears. It's amazing how people can witness these crimes against their friends, neighbors, and sometimes family and go on to live a productive adult life. Very sad and horrible that these events happened, but glad that father Desbois and his team were able to track down eye witnesses to get the million and a half innocent lives that recognition/ public knowledge of the events that they deserve?
March 1, 2009
My maternal grandparents emigrated from Ukraine in the early years of the twentieth century thereby escaping the fate of being murdered by Nazis. For this reason the investigations of Father Desboise are important to me.
It is curious that only one incident of overt anti semitism by the Ukrainian villagers is mentioned. Before Germany invaded the area there were violent pogroms against the Jewish population.
The incidents recalled by witnesses were painful and atrocious. This murderous side of human nature cannot be denied.
It is curious that only one incident of overt anti semitism by the Ukrainian villagers is mentioned. Before Germany invaded the area there were violent pogroms against the Jewish population.
The incidents recalled by witnesses were painful and atrocious. This murderous side of human nature cannot be denied.
July 22, 2014
Oh, wow! This is a whole new take on Holocaust discoveries! I didn't realize that so many mass graves were still left unidentified and unmarked. Written by Father Patrick DesBois, a French priest, the book is a combination of eyewitness accounts, research methodology, and personal discovery. It is also very telling of the effects of having lived in fear for so many years in the Ukraine. A recommended read for those wanting to explore a new area of Holocaust research.
Some might find the organization of information a little scattered, but the content is well worth the read.
Some might find the organization of information a little scattered, but the content is well worth the read.
May 18, 2023
I actually want to give this book 3.5 stars. While it can't be denied that the work Father Desbois did was fascinating and needed to be done, I didn't like the way the book was written. I sometimes felt like he was leaving thoughts half finished or referencing testimonies he hadn't gotten to yet, leaving me wondering if I had missed something in my reading. In summary, I enjoyed (not the exact word I'm looking for because all of this was depressing, but I enjoy learning and this is a seldom explored or written about perspective of the Holocaust) the content, but not how it was laid out.
February 13, 2018
I would give this book 5 stars for content - but overall only 4 stars as the narrative doesn’t flow well, rather it is a bit disjointed as the author jumps from town to town. However, the book fills in a lot of historical information and primary accounts of local, eye witnesses regarding the Holocaust in Ukraine, where the Germans did not utilize extermination camps, but mass shootings to kill the Jews.
April 7, 2009
This book is outstanding. The Priest interviewed people about the Holocaust and what they saw. Some were hesitant on what they wanted to say while others couldn't wait to get their story out before they passed. Eye awaking account on such a terrible event and how many in Germany think that it never happened. Highly recommend this book to anyone, undoubtly one of the best books I have ever read.
June 14, 2009
The Holocaust by Bullets is a "must read" book.
Father Desbois' research into the fate of the Ukrainian Jews is extensive and well documented. Witness interviews document the scope and horror of what 1.5 million bullets can do.
The truth continues to reveal itself 70 years later.
Father Desbois' research into the fate of the Ukrainian Jews is extensive and well documented. Witness interviews document the scope and horror of what 1.5 million bullets can do.
The truth continues to reveal itself 70 years later.
November 17, 2016
5 stars seems inadequate at best. Though it is a relatively short book given the subject, it is by far one of the best and most vividly written books on the horrors of the Holocaust. So heartbreaking that I had to read it in intervals, but it is a must read for all lest we forget.
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