Patrick Desbois

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Patrick Desbois (* Chalon-sur-Saône, france) is Catholic priest, head of the Commission for Relations with Judaism of the French Bishops' Conference and Consultant to the Vatican. In 2004 he founded the organization Yahad – In Unum. On May 1, 2007 he was honored by the American Jewish Committee with its "Jan Karski Award" for his "efforts to identify the mass graves of Jewish victims of the Shoah" and "his dedication to furthering understanding between Christians and Jews" [1].

[edit] His work with Yahad – In Unum

The task of Yahad – In Unum is to collect more informations about the mass killing of the Jews in the area of todays Ukraine between 1941 and 1945. Ukrainian contemporary witnesses are interviewed about the mass shootings which took place next to their home and the mass graves are located. Desbois himself estimates that there are no less than 1 million victims buried in 1,200 graves in Ukraine. The exact location of nearly all of the graves is unknown to any Holocaust researcher.

Patrick Desbois is president of Yahad – In Unum and is doing the interviews with the witnesses himself. Co-founders of the organization are the French cardinals Jean-Marie Lustiger, Philippe Barbarin and Jean-Pierre Ricard and Rabbi Israel Singer and Serge Cwajgenbaum of the World Jewish Congress.