Priest uncovering beginnings of Final Solution

KIEV, Ukraine – The Holocaust has a landscape engraved in the mind's eye: barbed-wire fences, gas chambers, furnaces.

Less known is the "Holocaust by Bullets," in which over 2 million Jews were gunned down in towns and villages across Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

Their part in the Nazis' Final Solution has been under-researched, their bodies left unidentified in unmarked mass graves.

"Shoah," French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann's documentary, stands as the 20th century's epic visual record of the Holocaust. Now another Frenchman, a Catholic priest named Patrick Desbois, is filling in a different part of the picture.

Desbois says he has interviewed more than 800 eyewitnesses and pinpointed hundreds of mass graves strewn around dusty fields in the former Soviet Union. The result is a book, "The Holocaust by Bullets," and an exhibition through March 15 at New York's Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Brought to Ukraine by a twist of fate, Desbois has spent seven years trying to document the truth, honor the dead, relieve witnesses of their pain and guilt and prevent future acts of genocide.

Much more at link (Warning: Disturbing photo also at link)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090201/ap_on_re_eu/eu_holocaust_by_bullets

How awful - my prayers for anyone who has suffered for their religious beliefs.

The book is meant so that people know ... that a genocide is simply people killing people," Desbois said. "My book is also an act of prevention of future acts of genocide."

I was reading an article called Hana's Suitcase and how a book was written and it is part of a display with other items from WWII.

It belonged to a young girl called Hana Brady. She was 13 when she died.

Even now in 2009 the horrors of the WWII should never be forgotten. The horrors never seem to phase me anymore when I read about what happened in WWII.

Thank you for sharing this link, DK. As time passes, it becomes easier for people to forget and/or deny the reality of history. "Lest we forget. . . ."