PUBLICATION DATE:  NOV 24TH
CONTACT:  Lauren Dwyer, Publicist
646.307.5698, Lauren.dwyer@palgrave-usa.com

“Part memoir, part prosecutorial brief, The Holocaust by Bullets tells a compelling story in which a priest unconnected by heritage or history is so moved by an injustice he sets out to right a daunting wrong.”
–The Miami Herald

“An outstanding contribution to Holocaust literature, uncovering new dimensions of the tragedy…Highly recommended.”
-    Library Journal, starred review

“An important addition to studies of the Shoah, agonizing to read and utterly necessary.” –Kirkus Reviews

THE HOLOCAUST BY BULLETS
A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind
the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews
Father Patrick Desbois

WINNER OF THE 2008
NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD

NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK

The first mass victims of the Holocaust never saw the inside of a death camp, crematorium or cattle car.  Their tragedy is hidden beneath the Ukrainian landscape, and within the memory of their friends and neighbors.  Their fate is unknown to most of the world, but a Catholic priest is determined to do justice to their memory.

THE HOLOCAUST BY BULLETS: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews is Father Patrick Desbois’ story of his heroic mission to investigate the murder of Ukrainian Jews by Nazi mobile units during World War II.  With the help of a team that includes an interpreter, a ballistics expert, a photographer, and an archival researcher, Father Desbois documents the heartbreaking details of an aspect of the Holocaust most people know nothing about.

The shootings of the Jews in Ukraine were the first mass killings of the Holocaust.  They occurred not in secluded sites or behind barbed wire fences, but in public, and often very close to the victims’ own towns and villages.  With great sensitivity and intuition, Father Desbois and his team visited the sites of these murders, and interviewed surviving witnesses, many of whom were recruited by the Germans to assist in the executions.  These testimonies, combined with documentation from German and Soviet archives and ballistic investigations of the mass grave sites, culminate in a shocking and vital account of this largely unreported period of Nazi atrocities.
- over, please -
Father Patrick Desbois is secretary to the French Conference of Bishops for relations with Judaism and advisor to the Vatican on the Jewish Religion. He is the winner of the B’nai B’rith International Award for Outstanding Contribution to Relations with the Jewish People and in 2004 he founded the organization Yahad – In Unum that investigates the mass murder of Eastern European Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War between 1941 and 1945.

About this book

In 2008, Father Desbois published The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priests Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews ( Palgrave-MacMillan).

“In this heart-wrenching book, Father Patrick Desbois documents the daunting task of identifying and examining all the sites where Jews were exterminated by Nazi mobile units in the Ukraine in WWII. 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. Compiling new archival material and many eye-witness accounts, Desbois has put together the first definitive account of one of history’s bloodiest chapters.”

- Palgrave-MacMillan

WINNER OF THE 2008 JEWISH BOOK AWARD

Please purchase a copy of Holocaust by Bullets using the link below. All proceeds go to benefit Yahad-In Unum.

PRAISE FOR HOLOCAUST BY BULLETS:

“A work of discovery, healing, and reconciliation…We owe him a debt of enormous proportions.” -Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I. Archbishop of Chicago”

“This very personal and affecting account is a significant addition to the history of the Holocaust that sheds new light on events in the Nazi-occupied areas of the former U.S.S.R.” -Lynn H. Nichols, The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War

“Combining archival sources and ballistic evidence with the voices of Ukrainian eyewitnesses, Father Desbois delivers a complete, harrowing account of what happened. This book is a triumph of historical exploration, deeply moving and profoundly disturbing.” - Nechama Tec,  Resilience and Courage: Women, Men and the Holocaust

“An important addition to studies of the Shoah, agonizing to read and utterly necessary.” – Kirkus Review