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Father Patrick Desbois    

French Roman Catholic Priest; Former Head of the Commission for Relations with Judaism of the French Bishops' Conference & Consultant to the Vatican

Father Patrick Desbois is a French Roman Catholic priest who heads the Commission for Relations with Judaism of the French Bishops' Conference and also a consultant to the Vatican. He is the founder of the Yahad-In Unum, an organization dedicated to discovering genocidal practices wherever they are found around the world and to providing a voice of protest on behalf of all past and present victims of mass murder. Yahad-In Unum was initially founded upon the mission of locating the sites of mass graves of Jewish victims of the Nazi mobile-killing units in the former Soviet Union. More recently, he has also spent the last two years gathering testimony from survivors of the Yazidi Massacres in Northern Iraq at the hands of ISIS. The work has resulted in hundreds of hours of eye-witness accounts of this modern day genocide and reveals the tactics and strategies ISIS utilizes to turn young Yazidi boys into brainwashed soldiers and terrorists. This compelling research is covered extensively in his new book, “The Fabrication of Terrorists: Into the Secrets of ISIS.”

He received the Légion d'honneur, France's highest honor, for his work documenting the Holocaust. He also serves as director of the Episcopal Committee for Catholic-Judeo Relations, under the auspices of the French Conference of Bishops. In 2004, he began to research the story of the Jews, Roma and other victims murdered in Eastern Europe during WWII by Nazi mobile killing units. His work through Yahad-In Unum has been recognized through numerous awards and public commentary in France and throughout the world.

His work has been sanctioned by the Pope, recognized and honored by the President of France and supported in Europe and the United States. Desbois has been internationally recognized for his extraordinary efforts; his awards include the Medal of Valor by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Roger E. Joseph Prize by Hebrew Union College, the Humanitarian Award by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Jan Karski Award by the American Jewish Committee, the B'nai B'rith International Award for Outstanding Contribution to Relations with the Jewish People and more recently, the National Jewish Book Award for his 2008 book Holocaust by Bullets (Palgrave-Macmillan). In 2013, he received the LBJ Moral Courage Award from the Holocaust Museum Houston. Since 2015, he has been teaching at the Program for Jewish Civilization in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University as an adjunct professor.

Action for Yazidis is also led by Patrick Desbois and collects the words of survivors to document and offer evidence of every step of the genocide of the Yazidis in Iraq and Syria. Father Desbois was interviewed on two episodes of CBS’ 60 Minutes.

Speech Topics

Revealing the Secrets of ISIS

ISIS remains as the most heinous terrorist organization in the world. And they are growing their ranks with an army of children. Although ISIS is being challenged on the battlefield, they are manufacturing a new generation of terrorists through slavery, torture and brainwashing. Father Patrick Desbois, a world renowned expert on the history of genocide, author and human rights activist, has spent the last two years interviewing survivors of the Yazidi Massacres in Northern Iraq at the hands of ISIS. The work has resulted in hundreds of hours of eye-witness accounts of this modern day genocide and reveals the tactics and strategies ISIS utilizes to turn young Yazidi boys into brainwashed soldiers and terrorists. Father Desbois describes the ultraviolent daily lives of these enslaved young boys. How they are forced to accept the Koran, learn to fire automatic weapons and make their own bomb belts. He shows how the training camps have become machines that crush children until they forget their identity and become willing fighters for ISIS…to the death.This compelling research is covered extensively in his new book, “The Fabrication of Terrorists: Into the Secrets of ISIS.” Father Desbois offers a warning of this new army of radicalized children and how we need to hold individual ISIS terrorists accountable for their crimes against humanity.

Holocaust By Bullets

Between 1942 and 1944, more than 2 million Jews were massacred when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. In a period of two and half years, the Nazis killed nearly every Jew in the region. The mass murder was part of the Holocaust, Hitler’s genocide of the Jewish people. Until recently, this chapter of Holocaust history, referred to as the “Holocaust by Bullets,” was relatively unknown. It is estimated that in less than five years, the witnesses to the holocaust will be gone.

During his lecture, Father Desbois will review the findings of his decade-long investigation of the war crimes committed by Nazi death squads in Eastern Europe during the “Holocaust by Bullets.” Patrick Desbois will chronicle the lesser-known side of the Holocaust as he recounts his meetings with over 4,400 eyewitnesses. He will discuss how he and his organization, Yahad-In Unum has identified over 1700 mass killing sites previously lost for over 50 years.

News

Central America’s first Holocaust museum to open in Guatemala
The first museum in Central America dedicated to remembering the Holocaust will focus on a lesser-known side of the Nazi-led genocide: the “Holocaust by bullets”. This is the name given to the mass murder by shooting of Jewish and Roma communities in the Soviet Union during the 1940s. Due to open early in 2017, the permanent display at Holocaust Museum of Guatemala will memorialise these victims through the stories of local witnesses. Launched by the organisation Yahad-In Unum, a non-profit founded in 2004 by the French priest Patrick Desbois, the museum’s mission is to educate the local population—especially young people—about the horrors of the Shoah. Although the museum is not yet officially open, it is already hosting temporary exhibitions.
A genocide overlooked
Exposing the ISIS killing machine

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