Father Patrick Desbois is the president and founder of Yahad – In Unum, a global humanitarian organization, dedicated to identifying and commemorating the sites of Jewish and Roma mass graves in Europe. He is also the Head of the academic council of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center. He is the grandson of a WWII French prisoner held in the Rawa Ruska camp on the Poland-Ukraine border. In 2004, he began to research the story of the Jews, Roma and other victims murdered in Eastern Europe during WWII by the Nazi mobile killing units, the Einsatzgruppen. A professor at Georgetown University, in the faculty for the Center for Jewish Civilization. He also served as director of the Episcopal Committee for Catholic-Judeo Relations from 1999 until 2016, under the auspices of the French Conference of Bishops.
He is the author of “The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews”, Winner of the National Jewish Book Award, and “The Fabric of Terrorists: Into the Secrets of Daesh”, based on his investigation of the Yazidi genocide in Iraq. His work through Yahad has been recognized through numerous awards and public commentary throughout the world. Compiling new archival material and many eye-witness accounts, Desbois has put together the first definitive account of one of World War II’s bloodiest chapters.
In 2017 he was awarded the Lantos Foundation’s Human Rights Prize. The Simon Wiesenthal Center presented the Jewish Medal of Valor to Father Patrick Desbois for his commitment to religious tolerance and cooperation. He received the Légion d’honneur for his work on the Holocaust.
